M . O s t e r m e i e r

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The Rules of Another Small World released today
May 10, 2011



The Rules of Another Small World was released today to strong reviews.

"Offering something new to a path well trod...a stunning collection of pieces exploring the intricacies of found sounds and electronics and the beauty of the piano in its natural state." — Fluid Radio

"A distinctive electro-acoustic collection dotted with micro-tonal detail that largely sidesteps any one delimiting style for a more open-ended presentation."
— Textura

"Deserves a trophy for most appropriate title of the decade: 37 minutes of orchestral minimalism, it shifts and crackles like alien vegetation, but one whose home planet is so delicate that cell division is the loudest sound imaginable...The Rules of Another Small World could be your getaway record for the summer."
— Coke Machine Glow

"I think I'm going to use the word brilliant again."
— Norman Records

The album is available from Tench, Darla (US), A-Musik (Europe), Experimedia (US) , Norman Records (UK), Stashed Goods (UK), Databloem (NL), ANOST (DE), Linus Records (JP), iTunes, and most large online stores.



Preview of upcoming album: The Rules of Another Small World
March 10, 2011





Chance Reconstruction a Top 10 of 2010 at Exclaim
December 5, 2010



M. Ostermeier's debut album made Exclaim's list of Improv and Avant-Garde Albums of the Year for 2010 along side Laurie Anderson's Homeland (Nonesuch) and Alva Noto & Blixa Bargeld's Mimikry (Raster-Noton).

"On his first full-length release, following two equally sublime minis early in the year, M. Ostermeier manages to quietly assemble a masterfully minimalist house of cards. While his peers in modern bedroom classical are numerous and distinguished, the Baltimore native elaborates on their current fancy for ghostly electronics married to stately acoustics with fundamental elegance. Each piece serves as hints to an eidolon; it's wisps of piano, bowed strings, remnant electrics describe the trace energies from great or sorrowful happenings as they slowly dissipate. Everything for a moment in its right place."
— Eric Hill, Exclaim




Chance Reconstruction released
September 9, 2010

Chance Reconstruction was released last week to an enthusiastic response:

"One thing is certain: Ostermeier is a compositional master."
— The Silent Ballet

"The unfathomable depth of these seemingly simple pieces lends them an unexpectedly epic air. Yes, this is small, quiet and fragile music. But it is also the biggest small, loudest quiet and most incisively fragile music you'll hear for quite a while." — Tokafi

"One of the finest examples of neo classical experimentation I've heard in a while. Thoroughly excellent."
— Norman Records

"M.Ostermeier's Chance Reconstruction on Tench Records is a stunner!"
— Deer Diary






Full-length album to be released on Tench in August
June 12, 2010

Chance Reconstruction will be released on Tench in August. More information can be found on the Tench website, from which the digipak CD can be preordered. Here are two tracks from the CD:







Lakefront released today on Hibernate
March 18, 2010

The 30-minute mini-album Lakefront was released today on Hibernate. The release is a limited edition CD (200 copies) that will also be available as a digital download.

Here is the description from the Hibernate website:

 M. Ostermeier’s recent solo debut Percolate (Parvoart, Jan 2010) featured fragile Rhodes and acoustic piano melodies atop minimal downtempo electronics and Labradford-esque guitar tones. Here on the seven-track mini-album Lakefront, the skeletal acoustic piano remains, but the minimal beats have evaporated and we are left with something more organic, more haunting. Harold Budd is still an apt reference for the piano fragments, but the infusion of acoustic recordings and darker guitar and electronics bring to mind Deaf Center and Library Tapes. The melancholic mood that builds throughout Lakefront evokes feelings of nostalgia and regret. One theme present in Marc’s mind as he was writing these pieces was how the passing of time necessarily brings uncertainty to one’s recollection of the past – an uncertainty that has its own poignancy.  

The CD can be ordered directly from Hibernate (UK) or from Experimedia (US). The album will soon be available at Smallfish and Boomkat as well.





Percolate reviewed in The Wire, Tokafi, Textura
February 20, 2010

Very nice reviews of Percolate have appeared in Tokafi and Textura. The March issue of The Wire says:

 "The Parvo Art label, and yes, we see what they’ve done there, are on an admirable mission to reinfuse post-rock, a tired-label reduced in some quarters to a predictable set of tropes, with it’s original meaning. The press release for M Ostermeier’s Percolate bristles against that too familiar brand of instrumental rock which oscillates almost ritually between silence and supernova, “something more rock than post.” Ostermeier himself was in the group Should, and here he looks to get back to a minimal but richly yielding sound based once more on the removal of rock solids. So the title track is almost gaseous, swirling around simple Rhodes piano figures which refuse to over-impose themselves, “September Again” is so wispy and distantly retreating it makes Harold Budd seem bang in your face, while the liquid, colourised “Persuasion” nicely offsets without rebutting, the melancholy stillness of the rest of this collection."  



Lakefront mini-album due in March
February 6, 2010

The 30-minute mini-album Lakefront is scheduled for a March release on Hibernate. You can listen two two songs from Lakefront here.





Percolate mini-album released
December 21, 2009

Percolate, a 7-song mini-album, has been released on [ parvoart ] recordings.

Also released this month on [ parvoart ] is a compilation called Advent with one M. Ostermeier song. Other artists include Stephen Spera, Will Long, Neve, John R. Carlson, Porzellan, R. Kitch, Duncan Ó Ceallaigh, and Alpe.