You are here

Tragedy & Geometry

2011
  1. Polyhymnia
  2. Batteries may drain
  3. Cupid's dart
  4. Already replaced
  5. Peroxide
  6. Arche
  7. Music for a moiré pattern
  8. Blue marlin
  9. The impossible flower
  10. Too short a season
  11. Allegiance
  12. Tragedy & Geometry
  13. Overnight Venusian
  14. Stare into space

Founded in 2006 by John Elliot, Mark McGuire and Steve Hauschildt, Emeralds was an Ohio based electronic music band which standed out for its ambient style and the influences of Kosmichemusik and minimal music in its music. They were quite notorious and even were invited by Godspeed you! Black Emperor to play with them during two festivals in 2010 and 2012. However, in 2013 McGuire left the formation and, although it was believed it would continue as a duo, Hauschildt left in 2013, too, and Emeralds ceased to exist. No wonder Hauschildt had been the last member to publish a solo work, and the first one had seen the light already in 2011: Tragedy & Geometry.

Inspired by both Greek muses in the title, Melpomene and Polyhymnia, this debut is far away from the American concept of new-age and takes its foundations from Europe: from Klaus Schulze to Tangerine Dream, to Michael Hoenig or Jean Michel Jarre's first stage. Hauschildt makes an intensive utilization of sequences, atmospheric pads and rythmic arpeggios. Even in the themes with more acid leads, there's still a harmonious elegance. Maybe as a leftover from Emeralds, the themes in Tragedy & Geometry evolves from minimal elements (a pattern, a chord progression), growing up and opening towards the vast terraces of cosmic music.

Well into the 21st century's second decade, Hauschildt's music is still wrapped in the innocence of those pioneers of electronic music, who back then in the 70s insisted on bringing, with their machines, the sounds of the universe. While loops repeat themselves and sequences change imperceptibly, it is easy to doubt if, when creating this album, it was the musician who controlled the synths or just the other way around.