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Listening to “Please Stop Loving Me,” the latest record of young modern classical composer Nicholas Szczepanik, and his first for Drag City‘s recently-resurrected German imprint Streamline, is a wonderful aural experience. He sustains a drone for nearly an hour, yet it has enough cascades and melodies that rise and fall in a peacefully sublime manner, without changing the ever-present tempo—which isn’t too fast-paced, but isn’t drop-dead glacially paced, either. Imagine, if you will, the jet stream having a sound—it would probably sound something like this. It’s constant, ever-moving, but far from dull, a sullen quickness hidden beneath a too-easy sounding melody that ambles and saunters in and out of the listener’s consciousness. This type of music is the sort of thing Brian Eno, Harold Budd, and William Basinski do quite well, and Szczepanik does it quite well, too; Please Stop Loving Me is a compelling listen, one that is minimal and quiet and hushed but, surprisingly, is not somnambulistic; music like this can and often does make one sleepy, but this—this does not. It sustains your interest over the long haul, making for a rewarding listen. If you have not heard his music—and I had not until this auspicious record quietly appeared—I could not think of a better record to serve as an introduction to a talented young artist.
