If one were to attempt the exact opposite of lounge or lift music, the best possible result might well be Paper Masks. The experimental sound collages by the two მეგობinated avant-garde artists Phew and Danielle de Picciotto simply cannot be consumed as background music. Instead, they demand the undivided attention of listeners – ideally adventurous ones – at every second. The often German-language texts are whispered and sent through echo loops, distorted into something android-like or, as with the chant-like »Wacht auf!« on »Amnesie«, delivered outright through a megaphone.
To accompany de Picciotto’s spoken-word contributions, Phew, working remotely from Japan, created highly free and expressive soundscapes purely intuitively and without understanding the content of the texts. More often than not, they fit the words surprisingly well, extending and complementing them. At times there are ASMR-like micro-sounds (»The Cat«) and ethereal chorales; at others, the almost unbearable tinnitus whine and feedback of »Sugar Sprinkles«. It therefore takes courage to commit both to the wild electronic arrangements and to the associative, often cryptic lyrics of Paper Masks – but that courage is rewarded. “A soothing sonic panorama”, as one line in »Pixelwissen« has it, definitely sounds different from this, which is why this antithesis of background music might just as well be described as uneasy listening or anti-ambient.
