"Good news: another album of music by Marianne Schuppe has arrived! The Basel-based singer and composer's previous collection slow songs remains a favourite of mine three years after its release, and the title of her new record, nosongs, suggests an even more reduced approach to the song form. Will she be able to uncover even greater riches in the spaces between silence, voice, and uber-bowed lute, or will it prove to be a case of a reduction too far? In what ways can 'slow songs' become 'nosongs', anyway? Is a 'nosong' the same thing as no song?

For me, one of the tendencies of slow songs that finds even fuller expression on the new album is the radical deconstruction or reconfiguration of melody. It is easy to think of melody as a continuous thread, a teleological drive from point A to point B that can easily be traced and recalled in the mind of the listener. Such threads are hard to discern in slow songs, and the task is even harder in its follow-up, like trying to track footprints when snowfall and snowdrift have partially obscured them. Rather than running from point to point, Schuppe's melodies often seem to circle; this is not just a matter of repetition (though this does occur); rather, there is a succession of shapes that seem similar and related, without being identical, in the manner of the crests of a mountain range. The frequent returns to silence underscore this deconstruction; melodic phrases are discontinuous in time, but grouped together in a silent landscape by virtue of a formal kinship. This approach to melody decentres and destabilises the singer: that figure who is so often front and centre of the picture, a reliable guide along a continuous melodic path, now appears only in fleeting glimpses and partial views.

Schuppe's biography describes her as being interested in the voice's ability to move between pure sound and words, and this interest is very much evident in "nosongs". Diction, duration, timbre, and mouth shape are all variables she plays with. Often, every vowel and consonant is clearly and precisely articulated, sometimes even to the detriment of the intelligibility of the word; at other times, a word or vowel sound dissolves into an illiterate hum, melding with the soft, resonating uber-bowed lute. The lyrics, as far as I can discern them, seem as deconstructed as the melodies that carry them: images flash with dazzling clarity, but linking them together into sentences, ideas, or narratives is fraught with uncertainty. Six fingers, tiny raccoons, snow, sidewalks, forgetfulness, arrest: sequences found in the landscape of some other game.

Given such a radical re-weighing of all the traditional ingredients of a song, what allows these 'nosongs' to still be called songs? Perhaps it is the presence of Schuppe herself, which, refracted and sometimes elusive as it is, remains tangible, in the silences as much as the sounds. "nosongs" takes the ideas and qualities of Schuppe's previous work and distils and refines them into an even more potent brew. These most tenuous of songs are also song at its most compelling."-Nathan Thomas, Fluid Radio

Nosongs

Steam snow bridles
folding out umbrellas
their last ticket
to ride in the
foggy snow
bedenck just
a place to dissolve
within some imaginary pond
names in landscapes
as they pretend
to wake up
bedenck
similarities sequences
followed by rainspells
spelled in the landscape
of some other name
wait yet
see the stream
clay runs across the
field in light for
primarily to wait for
embedded natures
coasts
climb in soft stones
knowing other reasons for
adroitly characters are
seeming ready
torn with between nutshells
clarifying
it's just April
calling farby with soar bits
filing files for us and seagulls
trembling for the stumbling woman on the stone pavement
laughing into the perfect jar
niemand ist ein Brotpilot
gesterns Ornamente bereiten es vor
ohne eine zweite Zeit
falling inside a restless preview
seing the fly in the purpleness
assuming it's not just arranged
remembering it is not rememberable
anxiousless adressing
as she goes by
means with different sides
of playing ball with
receptions of caring
about economics
rare earth to be selected
throughout the year
of common exchange
within the alphabet
feed me bits and kinds of
cloudyness runs through
growing moss
see that flying ball
still up in the air
came in here from side­doors
following a tiny racoon
seeing words in side­lines
walking seawhile
to paste a horseshoe
plein forgetfullness
streaming current
heading seaward
isn't that eye to be rested
wondering still while
riders in cars put kids in
observation of people with
calling fingers shadowing eyelight
waiting sidewalks
till the possibility
of another side
comes up
by motion
steam snow bridles
folding out umbrellas
their last ticket
to ride in
the foggy snow
on her forehead
derzeit mit Stern im Gras der
Gelegenheiten on the moory lane
blossoms with six fingers
faces faces facing north
rooted in a triangle
steht's auf der Spitze
leaving assets
pouring rains fairly well
speaking waters
rinsing leaves as they will
be or find inserted
picking spoonfulls of
blind capres of cypris
piecing them in sheets of mild paper
guarded by a spotted lady with uncalm eyes
harboured with skies
a second sky rolls
over the edge
bedenck just
a play to dissolve
within some imaginary pond
names in landscapes
as they pretend
to wake up
bedenck
similarities
sequences
followed by rainspells
found in the landscape
of some other game
when I see
what is spelled
opposite like
oceans are
as they ferried
places
occupations
even in ferry boats
within the
wiped out sight
is it still
only wind
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