Nils Quak – Warmer Asphalt
6.21.18 by Ryan Masteller

German knob-twiddler Nils Quak is just like the rest of us if you squint hard enough. Sure, even though he’s probably one of those people whose head is perpetually buried in a bird’s nest of synthesizer patch cords and whose eyes are glazed over from perusing thousands of sample files and whose shoulders are perpetually slumped under the weight of the backpack full of contact microphones doesn’t mean he doesn’t enjoy fresh air or non-microwaved food or the sweet rush of human attention. It just means he records and releases music on cassette tape, that’s all.

And boy howdy, has he ever added to his (impressive) discography with “Warmer Asphalt,” his debut on Never Anything Records but release number 21 if you’re looking at his Bandcamp page. (Look at it!) True to form, “Warmer Asphalt” is a sometimes pensive, often meditative, cautiously curious exploration of sound, with patterns and motifs nibbling around the edges of rhythm like fish. And nothing called “Warmer Asphalt” wouldn’t NOT sound like molten pitch being slathered all over a worn-out roadway on a hot summer’s day – just imagine all that material liquefying, spreading, and cooling, hardening into material strong enough for us to drive our automobiles upon. Quak fills our ears with the melodic imaginings of such matter, the foundation and the life that travels upon it. We are inextricable from the things we create.

You can get “Warmer Asphalt” from the Never Anything Bandcamp page (edition of 50 – hurry!), and you can keep an eye out for other reviews of tapes in this lovely batch around town… “town” being the internet, in case you thought I lived close by or something.