Send "Barbara Morgenstern " Ringtones to your Cell 
| Pitchfork |
So while other artists might take a greatest-hits occasion to pile on the makeup and make a case for canonization, Fan No. 2-- which serves as both an early-works compilation and a greatest hits-- is as understated as any of Morgenstern's albums. Despite having six full-lengths and a few EPs to draw on, the greatest-hits portion of this 2CD set has three new tracks, including a cover of the Beatles' "Blackbird" (which, in a gesture that proves Morgenstern is more interested in art than idol worship, turns Paul McCartney's folksy schmaltz into club-pop). "The Operator", her poppiest track-- the best evidence she could've been better-known if she decided that's what she wanted-- is featured as a "piano" version, without the blippy little drum machine that made the original usable on the dancefloor. "Der Augenblick" shows up as a previously unreleased remix. "Das Wort" was taken from an obscure EP. These are the kinds of choices that'd feel frustrating or self-deprecating in the context of other artists, but with Morgenstern they're expected-- the same kinds of choices that have made her career consistently interesting. The second disc here collects two early EPs, 1997s Enter the Partyzone and Plastikreport, previously released only on cassette. Lo-fi, minor-key, and lead mostly with cheap-sounding keyboards, they're like a less severe and more tousled version of Young Marble Giants-- the kind of music whose smallness lends it a paradoxical strength and resilience. They're not nearly as sophisticated as the sly, spacious sound she arrived at on 2003's Nichts Muss (my favorite album by her), but they're pretty great examples of her unusual instinct for harmony and melody-- on songs that are mostly between two and three minutes long, it's hard to figure out how she takes all the turns she does without making a mess. Compositionally, she lives at some imagined intersection of 60s spy-movie soundtracks, lounge, and cabaret, the plaintive, mashed-potato familiarity of Anglo indie-rock, and the computerized Euro-folk of Kraftwerk. Like all of her songs, up through "The Operator" and the new ones included on the greatest-hits disc, they feel like they're partially obscured or have their back turned-- they're all curve balls....full text |
| Dustedmagazine |
| It took a while, but with 2008’s BM, German electronica artist Barbara Morgenstern came into her own, leaving behind the awkwardness of her earlier albums and emerging as a class songwriter, someone who could hold her own alongside a figurehead like Robert Wyatt (who appeared on BM’s “Camouflage”). Fan No. 2 retraces Morgenstern’s career to that point, as well as presenting several new songs. It proves an odd theory I’ve pondered for some time: that artists working within the 1990s electronica paradigm often take much longer to find their true voice. In this way, their careers are often pleasingly ass-backwards – instead of bursting onto the scene and then experiencing diminishing returns, artists like Morgenstern work by accretion, slowly building a body of knowledge and a grasp of their chosen art form. Early songs on Fan No. 2, like “Das Wort” or “Nichts Muss,” play out like melodies in search of focus. 2003’s Nichts Muss (the album) had Morgenstern on the verge of nailing it, though it took her another five years to write her anthem, “Come To Berlin.” Here, the emotional weight is just right – sarcastic without being a downer, polemical but not dryly worthy, and sharply critical, but with a melancholy that justifies the tone. “Come To Berlin”’s lyrics address city planning in Berlin, moving through the psychological scars of "growth" in the city by way of architectural erasure, dropping into English only when allegorizing the flood of artists, ne’er-do-wells and chancers making the city the subcultural free-for-all it currently is – "Isn’t Berlin the place to be / Come to Berlin, this place is in." Throughout, Morgenstern is largely impassive, acutely aware of the shifting tides of Berlin’s cultural capital. After “Come To Berlin,” Morgenstern teases us with three new songs, including a cover of Lennon and McCartney’s “Blackbird.” They’re all good, but there’s real poetry in the way she leaves Berlin behind and moves into the natural-world romance of the previously unreleased “Mountainplace.” Here, her veneration of peregrination ("I just want to take a ride on a bike / I just want to take you to a mountain place") is a welcome flipside to “Come To Berlin”’s cold, hard watch of gentrification’s topographical and psychical damage....full text |
| Allmusic |
| Somewhere between a career overview and a collection of oddities, Fan No. 2 is a slightly cryptically titled compilation showcasing the equally hard-to-pigeonhole Barbara Morgenstern in engaging fashion. Organized chronologically but not always hitting the expected points -- her arguable master work at the time of its original release, "The Operator," appears in the alternate but no less involving piano version -- Fan No. 2 provides the joy of hearing an artist audibly explore options as she goes, from the rough home-electronics feel of songs like "Ein Versuch" through to a concluding cover of the Beatles' "Blackbird," transforming the gentle folk of the original into an electro-house stomp. Given how sharply observed her English-language lyrics can be, it's a treat to hear her in her native German for much of the album; if the meaning is lost to those not speaking the language, touches like the overdubbed vocals and tense then shuffling beats on "Das Wort" and the Thomas Fehlmann "mix expansion" of "Der Augenblick," with an amazing bassline snaking below the swooning swing of the main melody, help lay out the exploratory side of Morgenstern's direction. And it's not just the vocal numbers; the all-instrumental "Eine Verabredung" is as sweetly majestic a composition as one could want, at once as stately as a procession, and as darkly romantic as anything from Portishead's first album, thanks to the beats and guitars. The slight shift to a kind of polished, avant-garde AOR heralded by "Nichts Muss" helps frame the rest of the collection, becoming ever more of a blend of approaches she synthesizes with an easy grace, all while keeping a sharp, elegant bite to songs like her piano-led collaboration with Robert Wyatt, "Camouflage," and the new version of "Mountainplace," which helps wrap up the disc....full text |
Barbara Morgenstern lyrics
|
| |||||||
