marumari ballad of the round ball press

spin - august 2001 - "laptop punk and powerbook pop " article by simon reynolds

ten essential laptop cds 

matmos the west (deluxe)

kid606 down with the scene (ipecac)

lesser gearhound(matador)

blectum from blechdom the messy jesse fiesta (deluxe)

marumari ballad of the round ball (carpark)

kit clayton repetition and nonsense (dropbeat)

phthalocyanine 25tracks fer 1 tracks (planet mu)

hrvatski oiseaux 95-98 (reckankreuzungsklankewerkzeuge)

safety scissors parts water (plug research)

cex oops....i did it again EP (tigerbeat6)

de-bug - (february 2000) Nach dem für meinen Geschmack etwas verunglückten Start mit Jake Mandells 'Placekick E.P.', startet Carpark Records mit Marumari voll durch. Und wie.  Das ist vielleicht eines der besten Popalben, das man in diesem Jahr überhaupt zu hören bekommen wird. Nur wird es kaum jemand als Pop erkennen.  Aber der Reihe nach. Marumari klimpert ordentlich drauf los, hat eine Vorliebe für Hawaii und Orgeln mit Tremolo-Effekt, lässt obenrum Sinusböller explodieren, experimentiert mit rückwärts klonkenden Bässen und hat offenbar eine ganze Festplatte voll toller Beats. Die klingen ordentlich modern, aber immer locker und lassen einen entzückt mittanzen. Ein Symphat.

- thaddi *****

hardwax 1.21.00 great modern sounding electronica between Oval & current beat science TIP!

other music list (January 2000) One of the few electronic bedroom micro-indies in NYC born in the era of IDM, Carpark's inaugurating foray into the full-length release is the rather remarkable "Ballad of the Round Ball". Instead of fetishizing architecture (like so many contemporary electronic minimalists), the music here isn't all about structure, it's about melodic composition infused with basslines as thin as a dime. The faux-psych cover art (lifted from an Asimov novel, btw) is not entirely misplaced, suggesting a surrealism that characterizes Marumari's finest moments, particularly the softly-falling rains on 'Saturday'. "Ballad" sits like the work of a songwriter who chose to leave his songs unadorned by words.

-tim haslett

www.informativos.net (january 2000) Electrónica pop, que no pop electrónico, sería el mejor termino para definir el disco de debut de MARUMARI, siempre y cuando obtengamos una visión abstracta y desprejuiciada de lo que eso puede significar. Con maxis, temas o remixes en sellos como Tigerbeat o Vinyl Communications, MARUMARI realiza un disco lúcido en cuanto a planteamientos y resultados, aunque otra vez algo torpe si hablamos del ridículo discurso conceptual que le ha llevado a ello (una historia, de razas y universos paralelos donde MARUMARI actúa de interlocutor para el planeta Tierra, que es mejor obviar). "Ballad Of The Round Ball" puede recordar al "Vulvaland" de Mouse On Mars, con el que comparte esa electrónica tan terrenal y esos resultados tan evidentemente similares a estructuras propias del pop. Promete, pronto, un nuevo CD para CARPARK RECORDS que esperemos confirme la buena nueva de este relato futurista.

– jesus castillo

XLR8R (#40) New Yorker Todd Hyman throws his new label into gear with two fine but varied releases. First up is also first in the Carpark Sports-FAN CD series, a half-hour of limber and deft abstract beat work by Jake Mandell. Known previously for quixotic experimental drum and bass, Mandell offers Carpark carefully measured doses of deep groove, break art and a smart flavor of funk spread continuously over seven brief tracks. Placekick isn’t background listening like Mandell’s meditative Healing album, but instead demands two focused ears. Josh Presseisen’s Marumari project, on the other hand, is a softer, gentler (and longer) album, appropriately confounding in its pleasantness. "Circles" and "4 Eleven" are particularly clever, unwinding like a bedtime story that doesn’t go to plan like it should, but instead thrills with sudden percussive changes and zings of thick synth work that approach the seamlessness of Sun Electric’s later work. Taken together, Mandell and Marumari signal Carpark as a label to watch over the next year.

- Heath K. Hignight

www.hauntedink.com (february 2000) - With this, his second album, US artist Marumari establishes himself as one of the top IDM artists around. This is as polished, as consistent, as rewarding as anything I've heard in quite a while. The songs aren't titled, but each one is inventive, funny, and filled with countless twists and turns. The songs are generally green and yellow, medium tempo, building-block; that is, happy, optimistic, and filled with wonderful, inventive sounds. Take the first song, for instance. It begins with a whirling synth sound that turns into a quasi-sci-fi synth melody, distorted and fuzzy. Then the beat cuts in, along with sweeping FX and backwards CGD. Everything swirls around, jumps in and around that sci-fi melody. Things calm down, go back to the beginning, and start again, but it's not exactly the same. Some CGD are gone, others take their place. On the second song, there are even more backwards melodies and beats, and even more looping swirls of sci-fi atmospherics and crunchy beats. And this is just the beginning. His next album (due out later in 2000) is even better!

www.skinny.com (march 2000) Even MTV could hear the sweet beats of "Circles," the opening track of Marumari’s debut disc. After a number of appearances here and there, including a track on the Mad Monkey Records compilation Enter the Monkey, new and apparently well connected New York label Carpark releases the first of what promise to be a number of Marumari discs. Like the once madly productive Aphex Twin, Marumari slaps an individual stamp on every track. Many of the songs of Ballad of the Round Ball sound like an evolution of earlier Aphex work that never happened, like the happier songs of Selected Ambient Works II with more emphasis on the beats.

    Marumari keeps things melodically thick, like Plaid and Thug, while adding in some mellow beat programming. Usually at a low shuffle, the beats sometimes accelerate to near-jungle territory, only to back down a bar later to allow the melody to shine again, and sometimes disappearing entirely for an ambient interlude. Unlike many of peers in the abstract scene, Marumari is distinguished by composing songs that stay upbeat while staying somewhat experimental in terms of composition. "Eight7" could have simply looped the static-flavored beat and sunny melody line for four minutes and quit, but instead Marumari deconstructs the track halfway through and lets it bubble up again, without calling attention to the process itself.

    Perhaps the biggest compliment that can be given to Marumari is the identifiable sound on Ballad of the Round Ball; quite a feat when so many electronic artists sound so bland. The Marumari sound is the song of a monolith built by the Muppets of an alien planet. Play along.

-R. Geary

all music guide - 7 out of 10
The second full-length expedition by Josh Presseisen manages to send the
listener simultaneously outward beyond the stars of the imagination and
inward into the remoteness of the individual consciousness. The album
skillfully balances polar musical terrain: the eerie, alien barrenness
of a dreamed technological future, almost too rapidly encroaching, vs.
the world of our complex human emotions, which necessarily must give
meaning and shape to that future. Like Aphex Twin, Marumari palimpsests
rhythmic track after rhythmic track one atop another until they begin to
congeal into soundscapes that are almost organically verdant in impact,
if that is possible with electronic sound. They are very nearly made to
swing in a clanging, mechanical way (until now the peculiar trick of
Richard D. James, who also proves to be an influence by way of the
cryptically, trigonometrically titled tracks). Although the tone is, to
a certain degree, one of chilly bleakness, Presseisen imbues his beats
with a lushness that softens the harshest angles. They are then
transformed into songs—and made considerably more warm-blooded—by his
gift for protracted, intricate electroid melodies that bear comparison
to those of another expert knob-twiddler, µ-Ziq. The result is not
unlike an orchestration of technology, pieces of music that are both
automated and Luddite at once, wide-eyed but insular. In addition,
Marumari frequently employs a smothering (in the best sense of that
term) overlay of modulation à la Autechre, giving the music an even more
extraterrestrial surface quality, a mysterious skin that brings the
tracks under a single body. Comparisons aside, Ballad of the Roundball
introduced a highly individual and distinctive American voice to the
international cabal of electronica, one that flirts with the sort of
instantly identifiable and endemic hallmarks that have elevated certain
names (Moby, for instance) into mainstream techno circles, but,
nevertheless, one whose flirtations are subordinate to the music’s
adventurousness, its sense of exploration, its vision. The music neither
panders to a least common denominator nor is it inaccessible, a
difficult space to find and one that bodes well for Marumari’s future
body of work.
-stanton swihart

digital artifact (spring 2000) Carpark is the latest in the seemingly endless number of IDM labels sprouting all over the US. And tis a good thing! We (the good ole USA) are finally, in the last few years, giving Europe and the UK some tough competition. Enter Marumari into the contest. His fantastic debut album for Carpark Records, 'Ballad Of The Round Ball' is chock full of that crunchy, clanky IDM that packs enough punch in it's short time to cure 10 migraines.  These tracks are all thankfully short, which is good because nothing annoys me more than albums full of 10 minute tracks that define the word 'redundant'. I first noticed the unusual sounds emanating from this CD on the first 3 or 4 tracks. It's almost as if you are walking through a field filled with huge, thin sheets of aluminum swaying to the beat of the wind and giving off a very hypnotic wah-wah effect. Other tracks will appeal to fans of Oval and Mouse on Mars, with their digital sound manipulation and occasional outbursts of noisy clicks and harsh frequencies. Marumari is a very busy person this year, with two more albums set to be released by the fall. I hope it's all good. If you want to hear some stuff, e-mail him at Marumari@aol.com and he'll be happy to point you to some great downloads!!!

-Kevin Levan

    Marumari s’invente d’espiègles histoires du futur, forge de véritables comptines mutines à l’aide de ses machines frivoles. Il s’amuse à revoir, reconstruire le meilleur de Global Goon et des Boards of Canada à l’aide de ses arrangements cheap, de ses expérimentations laborantines loufoques et potaches. De l’air frais circule dans cet album, certes rien n’est particulièrement novateur mais tout est profondément sincère.

Octopus (spring 2000) Si ce numero d’Octopus fait etat du foisonnement des micro-labels de la cote Ouest des Etats-Unis, la cote Est compte aussi quelques initiatives remarquables. A new york, le jeune label Carpark semble etre promis a un futur radieux. Marumari, dont le premier album etait annonce sur vinyl comm. s’est d’ailleurs laisse seduire par ce label. "Ballad of the round ball" est une galerie de paradoxes musiceaux. Les melodies ultra-pop de Marumari, qui ne sont pas sans rappeler les hymnes d’AFX, sont contrebalances par une production volontairement sale, flirtant avec la saturation, et des rythmes mal degrossis qui obscurcissent la naivete des melodies – comme si Jega remixait des productions Bungalow, ou Felix Kubin experimentait le bogue musical.

- christope taupin

Plastiks (#40) – even modius melodius gaat Marumari te werk op ‘ballad of the round ball’. Hiermee kon Carpark binnenkort wel’s transatlantische pendant van Worm Interface, Hobby Industries en din gaan worden. Ontregelde orgeltjes, distro strings, messcherpe snares, allemaal krieuwelen ze wat mismoedig rond in Marumari’s digitale zelfportret. Een portretje me littekens. ****

- madb

MUZE (spring 2000) The scrappy, scuffling beat and glitch-crinkled melody of "Circle," BALLADOF THE ROUND BALL's arresting opener, caught the ears of MTV's ad department and ended up backing Celine Dion footage in a station ID. Such attention may not have catapulted Marumari (Josh Presseisen) out of micro-indie obscurity-yet, but it speaks volumes for the irresistibility of this music and perhaps even foretells a commercially viable future for Marumari's lilting, atom-age lullabies. 

    BALLAD pits Presseisen's imagination and sense of childlike wonderment against his precocious PC know-how. Marumari moderates heated debates between electrical appliances and battery-powered toys ("Ten7x-a," "Five14b," "First One") and recasts drum-and-bass as a pitched, galactic laser-fire fight ("Eight7"). "Saturday," "Seeya," "Boss," and "4Eleven" apply the artful simplicity and loop-knotic repetitions of Cluster and Kraftwerk, the Andromedan atmospherics of Aphex Twin, and the digital clutter of contemporary, computer-aided audio design to fanciful melodies salvaged from lucid daydreams. Whimsical and wonderfully mounted, this is the stuff of starry-eyed and eternal sci-fi fantasies.

- gil gershman

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