Toiling for almost a decade on Gudrun Gut's Monika imprint, singer, pianist, and producer Barbara Morgenstern has continually evolved her sound, from the bleepy indie electronica of her early days to a more confident brand of techno pop in recent years. Despite her progress, it wasn't until 2006's quasi-breakout single "The Operator" that folks outside her hometown scene in Berlin began to take notice. During those years as electro-pop's underappreciated shapeshifter, she gradually began to focus more on her own unique vocals, and now they serve as the central component (alongside the piano) of her current material. Morgenstern's fifth solo album, BM (her initials, naturally), is the artist's most personal yet, and finds her further shedding the digital elements of her previous records.
While her present tracks could fairly be described as avant-pop (think newcomer Lia Ices or Björk, even), Morgenstern is undoubtedly an electronic musician at heart. Even mostly organic numbers like album opener "Driving My Car" follow the build-and-release configuration so distinct to techno. In this song and others, instruments introduce themselves progressively at staggered intervals before congregating at a chorus or a stirring coda. "Reich und Berühmt" ("Rich and Famous") shares this quality, its stiff drums and treated guitars joining together with Morgenstern's emotive coos during an anthemic chorus section. These complex arrangements add distinctiveness to BM but also a hint of inaccessibility; the record sometimes feels difficult to penetrate.
That's not to say that BM is any less accomplished than past triumphs Nichts Muss or The Grass Is Always Greener, even if it's far less immediate. Morgenstern is more ambitious here and stingier with moments of melodic sweetness; as such, there's nothing as instantly compelling or hooky as "The Operator" on this album. "Morbus Basedow" probably comes closest, with its aggressive beat pattern that brings to mind the wallop of 2006's extraterrestrial banger "Get UR Fleece On" from Glasgow-based producer Izu. Outside of this lone club moment, though, BM is principally concerned with drawing emotion and intimacy from its circuitous instrumentals and technically intricate vocal pop.
In aesthetic terms, the record feels crafted with wintertime night drives in mind; its coloring and textures are classically (and unmistakably) German. Haunting and guitar driven, "Come to Berlin" utilizes Low-era Bowie/Eno arrangements to appraise her currently fashionable city. When Morgenstern asks her audience, "Isn't Berlin the place to be?" there's more than a touch of sarcasm in her query. At times the personal becomes political, and on "Camouflage", a darkly romantic duet with Robert Wyatt that took form over mail correspondence, the singer offers a skeptical stance on spirituality. Over a spooky, piano-based backdrop, she intertwines her vocals with Wyatt's to argue, "Belief is just a camouflage for fear." Combined with BM's chilly sonic underpinnings, the lyrical content of these tracks might imply a coldness or detachment, but Morgenstern's desire here to examine both internal and social conflicts (not to mention the urgency of her singing and piano playing) suggest that she's as engaged as ever.
BM's difficult instrumental pieces are no less adventurous than its electro- and piano-pop moments and contribute to the album's tendency, at times, to feel unnecessarily heady. Asymmetrical and vocal-less, "My Velocity" layers crashing piano noises with screeching guitars overtop an insistent digital drumbeat. It's the sort of conceptual number that fascinates me on first listen and then instantly dives into the never-listen-again section of my brain. Songs like this and others such as "Hustefuchs" that seek to frighten and confound make for an effort that swaps a good portion of its approachability for creative advancement. That's a trade-off that close followers of indie and electronic music are inclined to celebrate, even though (or perhaps because) it will scare away most of the general public. But BM is an album that even daring listeners will need to sit with for four, five listens before getting comfortable. In an age of vast, immediate file sharing and countless other options such as, I dunno, Chinese Democracy, it may not get its due.
