Each Tuesday, FADER editor Matthew Schnipper highlights an underappreciated recent release he thinks we need to know about. This week it's Hauschka's Prepared Piano. Listen to the "Traffic" below and read about it after the jump.
Our online editor says he and I have different definitions of "slept on." He says if you haven’t heard of it, you can’t have had a chance to sleep on it. I guess that is understandable. But, I mean, I heard of it and I’m no sleuth! Fat Cat put out this dude’s next record! That’s the same label as No Age (for a little while)! And, hey, this is a jamarooney! Even if it just some dude named Volker Bertelmann (bka [or maybe just regular aka]) Hauschka.)
I have to say, Hauschka is maybe representative of the two lines of my musical taste being that 1. I have awesome taste 2. I have really dumb taste. I mean, this is just a dude playing the piano alone. Not even regular piano, but prepared piano, a piano with tiny objects blocking the strings and hammers. This is some nerd shit. I feel like I have more pimples than I already do. I had lunch with my parents today and my dad was talking about Mozart for a second, and how I would agree dude is good but he might not be my thing. My dad loves classical music. That’s cool. It’s not always for me but I respect that people like it. Who can respect a dude who listens to music like Hauschka? I think another bunch of loser dudes. Is this worse than liking anime? I wonder what Hauschka thinks? Is he proud? I bet he has transcended after he had a moment and was like “Well, I guess this is just what I do.” Good for him!
NEWAYZ man this album is somehow super duper awesome. Online editor was like WHAT IS THIS CRAZY JAM YOU ARE PLAYING and I was like “today’s Slept On column” and he was like “I thought that was some nerd shit” and I was like buddy you thought wrong. Because somehow, despite being a guy playing a piano with little tiny things stuck in the strings, this record is really upbeat and fun. He has a paced sense of rhythm and on “Traffic” speeds that up to play along with himself on a number of tracks, devolved Chariots of Fire-style organicized. It has a etudes feeling but in the let-loose looseness of middle school jazz. Also, this sounds like Randy Newman without singing.