51 Shades Of Grey – [multer] live in Köln 2006

SP 014

Digital Version available immediately here,
limited and numbered heavy weight physical and hand-stamped copy can be ordered at drone records.

Frans de Waard wrote in Vital Weekly 1057, November 2016;

[MULTER] – KÖLN 4/11/2006 (CDR by Klappstuhl)

Normally I don’t mention the package of a product because basically I think that music should speak for itself, and when I mention covers, it is to say that the cover has not a lot of information, is printed too darkly, too small or such like; but hardly the standard of design. Klappstuhl Records have some fine releases on their label so far, but their design needs some improvement, so there’s your exception. But then I got this new release by [Multer] in which the CD box contains a plate of metal, and thus the whole thing is quite a heavy weight release. On a transparent sheet we see the rest of the info on the back; now that’s what we like, even when the whole idea of metal sheets inside jewel cases isn’t exactly new (Radboud Mens’ ‘Sine’ comes to mind).
[Multer] is a trio of Neidhart on guitar, whom we otherwise know as N (with a number attached to that to indicate which release he’s now at), Thomas Geiter on keyboards and live mix and Mal Hoeschen on field recordings and live mix. They have been around for close to
twenty years but didn’t release that much over that long period, about a dozen or so releases, mainly on their own Gesungswerk label. Between 2003 and 2011 there have been no releases (also after that nothing, until this one), but the group did perform live, such as on the night of November 4th 2006 at the lovely Kulturbunker in Cologne, organized by Auf Abwegen’s mastermind Till Kniola. I am not sure if they played more concerts in those years or if there is otherwise a reason to release this now, but the fifty-four minute concert sounds like something that should/could have been released much earlier. Why wait all these years, I thought. The music of [Multer] is that of post-rock influenced drones, mainly through the use of the guitar and effects, but that is, I think, only a part of the story. The other two members have also quite some input in the overall sound, with their chirping of insects or recordings of voices talking, the latter adding more atmosphere to the music than something of a lyrical content, it seems.
The whole piece is the sum of various parts, and [Multer] play their music while staying on the same volume level for a while and then go up in crescendo I think, in order to reach a not so loud climax and then continues with a single sound for the next segment. None of this music is very loud even when there are a few climaxes to be noted. This is simply a wonderful live recording and it’s great to have from a band like this; they have a sparse output, so anything is welcome, I should think.
(FdW)