The duo Alan & Jan consists of producers and sound artists Alan Abrahams, who has previously appeared as Portable and Bodycode, among others, and Jan Jelinek, who for more than 25 years has been weaving his idiosyncratic, microtonal sound carpet and in doing so probably founded a genre of his own. Take Me I’m Yours, their first collaboration, is a collage artwork from cover art to final note, just as the form demands. Abrahams sent his song sketches and various vocal tracks to Jelinek for a particularly unusual process of manipulation and production, whose abstract electronic sound design works very well as a counterpoint to the organic sound of the voice.
At times, Jelinek proceeds quite rigorously, distorting the voice beyond recognition or pitching it down into slow motion (»Together«). Elsewhere, Alan’s voice is layered into ghostly chorales, as on »Window (Elpis)«. On the early album highlight »Forever«, one even hears an almost classical vocal performance, complete with melody and lyrics. Most of the time, however, Jelinek samples only for fractions of a second and uses Abrahams’s voice as an organic sound source, from which he then builds small melodies, surfaces and gently pulsing beats. Abstract and yet grounded, Take Me I’m Yours turns many small, subtle sounds into a larger overall image that mediates between the two worlds of Alan and Jan – and in doing so allows a third to emerge.
Related Features
Records Revisited: Jan Jelinek – Kosmischer Pitch (2005)
Column
Jan Jelinek picks 10 records that have influenced, enhanced and educated him.
List, Portrait
Take Me I'm Yours
