Previous releases from the German electronic artist Ekkehard Ehlers tended to center around the radical manipulation of samples pulled from different sources, which have included recordings of early 20th century composers, the works of Albert Ayler, and Delta blues legend Robert Johnson; creating entirely new soundscapes out of these source materials, you'd usually be hard pressed to make out the original sounds in Ehler's reformatted sonic sculptures. Ballads is the first album from Ehlers that we've picked up for Crucial Blast, as it came out recently through S.M.T.G. ( a limited edition vinyl release of the cd that came out on Staubgold earlier this year), and it's probably the darkest, heaviest piece of sound art that he's produced. Teaming up with percussionist Paul Wirkus, Ehlers takes pre-recorded material from an improvisational set performed by a group consisting of Paul Wirkus on drums, clarinetist Kai Fagaschinski, and bassists Achim Tang and Werner Dafeldecker, who create a series of slow, abstract chamber-jazz pieces cloaked in shadow, warbling drones and slithery dubbed-out percussion. These creepy, abstract darkjazz jams are then pulled apart and fused with sheets of caustic electronic noise, creaking clattery metallic sounds, manipulated samples of recordings from Alice Coltrane and Henry Flynt that are smeared into nearly unrecognizable fragments of melodic detritus, groaning bass strings, the frightened bleating of reeds, bits of percussive clatter stretched out and drenched in delay, occasionally creeping into long stretches of noisy, overdriven heaviness (such as at the end of "Atlas", where the group builds into a skittery, chaotic jam that sort of sounds like Wolf Eyes launching into droning kosmiche crush), sputtering crackling clouds of digital Pita-esque laptop noise drifting in every direction. I'm often reminded of the dark, menacing chamber-jazz noir of Bohren & Der Club Of Gore, but it's as if that group's music was contaminated with shards of shambolic dub, pulsating electronic luminescence, abstract digital collages and washes of gorgeous ambient fuzz a la Tim Hecker. Highly recommended! This limited vinyl version comes in a run of 300 copies, and is packaged in a beautiful two-color silkscreened jacket with silver metallic printing.