tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-46809311525589500572024-03-13T12:34:28.461-04:00e/i Magazine > AUDIO VERITÉCommentary on recordings electronic, experimental, and unclassifiableDarren Bergstein (Editor/Publisher)http://www.blogger.com/profile/03979361482585766858noreply@blogger.comBlogger15125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4680931152558950057.post-37826302065448263182009-01-28T17:05:00.034-05:002009-01-30T10:01:21.003-05:00Installment 29 • Experimedia label profile<span style="font-weight: bold;">ASYMMETRICAL HEAD Feeling Sorry For Inanimate Objects</span> <span style="font-weight: bold;"><br />JEREMY BIBLE & JASON HENRY Vector</span> <span style="font-weight: bold;"><br />JEREMY BIBLE & JASON HENRY Shpwrck</span> <span style="font-weight: bold;"><br />ILLUSION OF SAFETY The Need to Now</span> <span style="font-weight: bold;"><br />KOEN PARK Everything in Shadow</span><br /><br />'Experimental' is an appellation that's been bandied about increasingly to the point where its currency has been somewhat devalued. It's presumably whatever residual caché there might be in this term that Ohio-based label and arts organization, Experimedia, seeks to draw on in choosing to hang this sign above their web-window. Whether or not it has effectively served such a purpose is debatable, it's a term that's always been liable to repel more than it attracts. But the crucial thing here is the capacity 'experimental' has to signal to a particular type of music user something <span style="font-style: italic;">challenging</span>, something that will make demands of this intrepid audio-explorer, but that will ultimately <span style="font-style: italic;">reward</span>, and transform the listener from simple passive consumer of commodified product to something higher. Yes, there is <span style="font-style: italic;">work</span> to be done with the 'Experimental' (we understand), but implied is that the fruits are that much sweeter for those <span>who do the work</span>.<br /><br />So, to the wares on offer. Experimedia deals in digital and physical publication and promotion of music and visual arts it deems interesting. Its catalogue covers a broad stylistic range taking in ambient, electronica, electro-acoustic, experimental, sound-art, microsound, glitch, avant-garde, and minimalist. It has lately raised its profile, with label curator, Jeremy Bible, putting himself about through various forums and modes, not least of which his own musical project with sidekick, Jason Henry. Ramping up Experimedia's physical release output (most have been digital download), Bible & Henry propose two offerings along with three others: from veteran avant-ophile, Illusion Of Safety, and newer acts, Asymmetrical Head and Koen Park.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjI75kFsDGEHyKUtfEJSEqw1I0dkjsfMhmPe50wyg2cFhpGliZV5k7MLMuvFd8H5T5BwdF_6FZydTDDa7AHSAjTTgSneLNw8qaDyQtgssMpPcxVSx4MJp7y-2xdvwtYRNi_LS0mSBFILfIl/s1600-h/expcd003-120.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 120px; height: 160px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjI75kFsDGEHyKUtfEJSEqw1I0dkjsfMhmPe50wyg2cFhpGliZV5k7MLMuvFd8H5T5BwdF_6FZydTDDa7AHSAjTTgSneLNw8qaDyQtgssMpPcxVSx4MJp7y-2xdvwtYRNi_LS0mSBFILfIl/s200/expcd003-120.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5296470445674677890" border="0" /></a>Experimedia CDs come with strong visual linkages, those of Bible and Henry tucked into tall, three-panel fold-out packaging with artwork featuring nature forms photographically translated to abstract. This pair of releases evidences these sound artists’ rudeness of musical health. <span style="font-style: italic;">Vector</span> is an affair of gritty atmospheric driftzones, all discreet swathes of granular oceanism washed in mercury. Residing in an interzone between sound art and music, paradigms of indeterminacy and structure contend for dominance at various points. Parallelling the visuals of the artwork, forces of abstraction and dissonance pull conventional musical instrumentation away from melody and consonance. The production style has a corroded and abraded feel, with piano and cello consorting with processed voices and percussive crackle, seeking to register themselves over the dust-blown contours of its frayed canvas. Tracks like “Alska” checks in to Jeck land, scuffed vinyl and loop-base swept by a chill wind from nowhere and steely industrial-strength noise. Metallic mesh fused with static rumble swarms over “Fndt” in a sticky forest ambience. The nightmare quotient of <span style="font-style: italic;">Vector</span> tends to grow as it proceeds, with the queasy “Vctr” ramping up to the discomfiting “Lmp”, the set reaching closure in unquiet quietude.<span style="font-style: italic;"><br />Shpwrck</span> is broader in its stylistic range, and more approachable overall (less 'experimental'?! You decide...) with a more open sound field, less prone to settling density and noise-mongering incursions. The eponymous tracks bookending the set are relatively serene driftscapes, largely composed of horn-like smears of tonal figure stretched across ambiguous evacuated ground edged with rustling and fibrillating field matter. For reference points, look no further than the lately quiescent Paul Schütze, <a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi5fANyBRA7MYDXSGK57IMTVoroCUWfi6gbqWNU__V_TUr9eyEPMqu0MYcOT5Fas0D1jCmb08mESTlVAbon1hI8y4DLvUf3YNHwiPHLus5YL77YzTwegiQZmEaCrhb9V9qAPJCzpMHgr_kg/s1600-h/expcd005-120.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; float: right; cursor: pointer; width: 120px; height: 160px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi5fANyBRA7MYDXSGK57IMTVoroCUWfi6gbqWNU__V_TUr9eyEPMqu0MYcOT5Fas0D1jCmb08mESTlVAbon1hI8y4DLvUf3YNHwiPHLus5YL77YzTwegiQZmEaCrhb9V9qAPJCzpMHgr_kg/s200/expcd005-120.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5296471261867746450" border="0" /></a>notably on the apocalyptic nightscape that is “Dstromsh”, all time-stretched sound-spectres, an ill trumpet wind (more Kondo than Hassell) blowing through it. Elsewhere are the crepuscular expanses of “Yetisltk” and “Yetiatk”, “Sphotnblp” toying with tintinnabulations, “Luupn” playing with processed pianistics, and “Cldstrct” creeping with string striations. <span>Overall </span><span style="font-style: italic;">Shpwrck</span> finds fascinating fusions of crepitating atmospherics, environmental effluvia and unforeseen against-the-grain elements, infused with the spirit of early Schaefferian musique concrète, to articulate an engrossing shadowy imagism.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiCktk-HfkZsTSr_TFIrQTWskLr4RDGb_WKSE0Dx9OoWIzyp5DTvlI-KLMJzhyphenhyphencWY1Xbzyqw65gfss8435Sq9jOxSn0gHV-9l7qKQRcaWrkYI6f57N9lvUu6kCvapAzjx0iQnOUQSVt8hhV/s1600-h/expcd002-120.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 120px; height: 160px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiCktk-HfkZsTSr_TFIrQTWskLr4RDGb_WKSE0Dx9OoWIzyp5DTvlI-KLMJzhyphenhyphencWY1Xbzyqw65gfss8435Sq9jOxSn0gHV-9l7qKQRcaWrkYI6f57N9lvUu6kCvapAzjx0iQnOUQSVt8hhV/s200/expcd002-120.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5296470449446671282" border="0" /></a>Next up is a new set from Illusion of Safety, a name long established in the vanguard of experimental post-industrial soundscaping. Dan Burke has been active across three decades - albeit far less lately, with a score of CDs on fierce labels like Die Stadt and Staalplaat under his belt. <span style="font-style: italic;">The Need to Now</span>, a punning paranoid title alluding to the machinations of the military and intelligence services, provides for a new generation to encounter IOS's dystopian collaging, corrosive archaeologies, and nervous atmospherics. Burke’s late-period work, wrought from electronics, laptop and contact-miked hand-held objects along with samplings of radio, TV and vinyl, has a less spattered audio-canvas. It's more liable to interleave its tight-wound viscous ambiences with suspenseful lacunae. There are still the same up-close field recordings and obscure objects of acousmatic desire, and IOS continues to indulge his proclivity for sudden transitions, from fearful din to brooding near-beauty. Bricolages of distended voices, samples, rhythms and altered instrumentation predominate. The quietude of “Lost” is wracked by low-level swirls of whistling tones, crepuscular ambiance, and faux-naif melodic delicacies in surreal juxtaposition with the prevailing toxicity. “A Purpose” crawls through a gloopy femme-vox morass, infested with all manner of clicks, cuts, whirrs, whorls, and wooze, and synth irruptions. And “About When” takes a wrong turn into a lounge jazz cocktail nightmare, as writhing concoctions slip-slide into passages of distorted music-band and plinkety piano playing. Overall Burke summons an unholy gathering of discreet charm, malignant metal and fizzing field tones in <span style="font-style: italic;">unheimlich</span> manoeuvres, fermenting immersive tracts of perturbance and unease. Recommended for lovers of immersion in perturbance.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg_fTf2l-kluxAhSAV8lhyJFYIs0lqsydA_SHMW3rqywOtXnaWwptkAXdhcJ4mYW0pccNytcQhpekxbwjh3zUKtbZ5B-8qv0YUn7uSXc207FA3bwiSfBlGOkwUOloW2K99MVPH3Q72YyPqV/s1600-h/expcd004-120.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 120px; height: 160px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg_fTf2l-kluxAhSAV8lhyJFYIs0lqsydA_SHMW3rqywOtXnaWwptkAXdhcJ4mYW0pccNytcQhpekxbwjh3zUKtbZ5B-8qv0YUn7uSXc207FA3bwiSfBlGOkwUOloW2K99MVPH3Q72YyPqV/s200/expcd004-120.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5296470448029116418" border="0" /></a>Asymmetrical Head is Orlando FL-based William Rosario, who flies under multivariate colours, covering bases from post-industrial machine-funk, EBM and electro influences on the one hand to 90s Ambient and IDM stylings, with a smattering of broken beats, hip-hop method, even a dub(step) nod. Though traces of the founding fathers of these musical states, the likes of Kraftwerk and Public Enemy indirectly, Aphex Twin, Autechre, The Orb, and FSOL more directly, are detectable, <span style="font-style: italic;">Feeling Sorry For Inanimate Objects</span> is very much <span style="font-style: italic;">sui generis</span>. It's an intriguing collection that, no sooner you may think you have it pinned down, veers off down new avenues, seeking other folds and fusions. The familiar refuses to be tagged lest it risk breeding contempt, seeking a shack-up with something alien for exotic trans-fusions. So while “White Elephant” lets loose guitar funk and synth-squelch on a spidery rhythm base to make neo-tribal retro-futurist electro- (it has to be heard!), “Pig Lizard” entertains a close encounter of the queasy kind with an unsettled ambient descended from some of <span style="font-style: italic;">SAW II</span>’s more ambiguous elevator-scapes. “Abandoned Bike”, on the other hand, channels distant techno signals through the old industrial blender. The long-form finale, “Beartrap in the Ocean?”, goes back through just about every styling in the electronicists’ style guide, letting itself be eaten for a moment by a glitch-fuelled noise-demon, before surprising with song-lines, keyboard warmth, squirrely acidisms, even string and woodwind interpolations. Quite a trip in this particular Experimedia ship.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg3qjQIqf4M1gICAjVXP1JIISE8jM1iv0_vrq6DmDuuLPXuQ_U62w6uC_IfAq9XAloJC1HLIWoES-h1Wgyvo7nGk6rZPGu5tQjassgbu_PEOD-0Sph0CbK0vdQVrLFIGpbYT5n8MynJjnue/s1600-h/expcd006-120.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 120px; height: 160px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg3qjQIqf4M1gICAjVXP1JIISE8jM1iv0_vrq6DmDuuLPXuQ_U62w6uC_IfAq9XAloJC1HLIWoES-h1Wgyvo7nGk6rZPGu5tQjassgbu_PEOD-0Sph0CbK0vdQVrLFIGpbYT5n8MynJjnue/s200/expcd006-120.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5296470449817971586" border="0" /></a>Finally in this round-up there's Koen Park, known to his Mum (whose garage in South London apparently provides a base for part of his split-site operations) as Ian Hawgood. Dividing his time between here and a small flat in Tokyo, he peddles a lo-fi electro-hip-hop-pop-folk-shoegaze hybrid made...here goes... vintage keyboards, circuit bent casios, drums, piano, field recordings, melodica, harmonium, glockenspiels, samplers, drum machines, live drums, field recordings, effects pedals, tape recorders, and computers. Sixteen tracks, many of them sub-minute cameos, come clustered in an hour of <span style="font-style: italic;">Everything in Shadow</span>. From the outset “An Urban Rose” sets a pleasant downtempo tone that speaks of BoC couched in the language of lo-fi bedroom chill. Mention of BoC is not idle here, for Koen Park deals in that same vocabulary of hazy wistfulness, of children’s chatter and off-stage patter, warbly-spangly analogue keys, also with the groovy beats, ja. On “Your Broadcast” a certain remote melancholia plays about the edges, offset by Ninja Tune-type funky drummer loops, an oft-present element providing a sometime needed bounce or ballast. Two more lengthy pieces conclude the set. “I Fall Into You” and “Wake Me, It's Time To Sleep” are more consciously reflective, especially the latter. The former retains the serene synth motifs, letting them disport themselves among babble and broken-beat, bird calls and insects, and mellifluous guitar motifs. The latter is more experimental soundscaping than the backwoods neo-chill of the early part of the album, yielding to guitar atmospherics somewhere between étude and simple exploratory plucking, rustles and whooshing fragments sweeping and panning across the soundfield in a sea of viscous flotsam. The bedroom poetry of <span style="font-style: italic;">Everything in Shadow</span> comes from an attractively nostalgic stable, carefully crafted with a deliberate insouciance, and imbued with a lively fertile spirit which wins Hawgood some latitude for some less substantial material along the way. • <span style="font-weight: bold;">ALAN LOCKETT</span>alhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00423168824730574715noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4680931152558950057.post-66069239634266342422009-01-15T17:44:00.067-05:002009-01-30T10:02:50.926-05:00Installment 28 • Symbolic Interaction label profile<span style="font-weight: bold;">ANXIO GREEN Autumn Honey</span> <span style="font-weight: bold;"><br />RUDI ARAPAHOE Echoes From One To Another</span> <span style="font-weight: bold;"><br />DIF:USE Mandrake</span> <span style="font-weight: bold;"><br />HEADPHONE SCIENCE Painted</span> <span style="font-weight: bold;"><br />LOWRIDERS DELUXE Future Deluxe</span> <span style="font-weight: bold;"><br />IZUMI MISAWA Speaking behind the Raindrops</span> <span style="font-weight: bold;"><br />DAVID NEWLYN Relatively Down</span> <span style="font-weight: bold;"><br />THE RETAIL SECTORS Subject Unknown</span> <span style="font-weight: bold;"><br />THE RETAIL SECTORS The Starlight Silent Night</span> <span style="font-weight: bold;"><br />VARIOUS ARTISTS The Silence was Warm</span> <span style="font-weight: bold;"><br />VARIOUS ARTISTS The Silence was Warm vol.2</span> <span style="font-weight: bold;"><br />XELTREI Litotes</span> <span style="font-weight: bold;"><br />YAPORIGAMI Saryu Sarva</span> <span style="font-weight: bold;"><br />ZEBRA The Black & White Album</span><br /><br />Symbolic Interaction is a recently established label operating out of Yamanashi, Japan, founded by Kentaro Togawa. Its ambit of ambient, electronica, shading marginally into indie/post-rock territory, declares an affinity with the likes of Type and Miasmah, on the one hand, U-cover, n5md, and fellow Japanese imprint, Plop, on the other. While there's a world between the uber-elegant ethereal cinematics of Rudi Arapahoe and the chugging guitar concatenations of boss Togawa’s The Retail Sectors, the releases under review here suggest a coherent spine around which a fairly diverse roster of artists may spiral, from a closely cloistered 'A' (Anzio Green) to a more free-floating 'Z' (Zebra).<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEikhe-KNMlOddaCNAVLZ9HrgmlE4_DGYNOUTa-go3pgnY9ao3FqZ0xRBFPxIuzR-9sPXgekLSgCzGP2uDAtoibJLYuRks5BDpekgxlyBbBFe29AvRF21t25Ch24ycUKoNTFZQSOoS6UTyQj/s1600-h/sic012small.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 150px; height: 150px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEikhe-KNMlOddaCNAVLZ9HrgmlE4_DGYNOUTa-go3pgnY9ao3FqZ0xRBFPxIuzR-9sPXgekLSgCzGP2uDAtoibJLYuRks5BDpekgxlyBbBFe29AvRF21t25Ch24ycUKoNTFZQSOoS6UTyQj/s200/sic012small.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5291659039063863794" border="0" /></a>First up, then, is Anzio Green, a project which sees Mark Streatfield (aka Zainetica) and Wil Bolton (aka Cheju) conspire to sell a dummy to those anticipating a beat-slathered set of IDM pop-tronica. Previous form on their own imprints (Rednetic and Boltfish respectively) proves deceptive, as their first collab, <span style="font-style: italic;">Autumn Honey</span>, turns out a quite different tidbit; while not wholly abstaining from rhythmicity, it largely targets reflective atmospherics and nature-inspired soundscapes, the latter partly prompted by track titles referencing skies, mountains and rivers. Streatfield and Bolton use conventional sources – predominantly electronics, keyboards, and guitars - the resulting five pieces hosting gentle cross-currents of guitar and electric pianoid melodic embellishments. Early Arabesque overtones yield to less exotic but still evocative pads layered with melodies traced by guitar lines. Overall AG seek to enshroud themselves in unwonted frequencies, spooling out creative couplings of acoustic-electronic over extended tracks. These tend to configure themselves into swell-relent surge-recede patterns in tonal swathes, here arcing in crystalline timelines, there stretching serpentine to imaginary horizons.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjlnkFiQsYHhZWcHGmvvFf2gbr22SGgAJxQ_M4QSGl5PYJUWGNSzQHreYb2qlqlOQEvgWw7SiLjCUIr_0ShormSimShMpVdmZcfuJqvN71o-jZgoOX8wtGLQhjv4MX_0MTxRsu_YTC3djdk/s1600-h/sic015small.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 150px; height: 150px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjlnkFiQsYHhZWcHGmvvFf2gbr22SGgAJxQ_M4QSGl5PYJUWGNSzQHreYb2qlqlOQEvgWw7SiLjCUIr_0ShormSimShMpVdmZcfuJqvN71o-jZgoOX8wtGLQhjv4MX_0MTxRsu_YTC3djdk/s200/sic015small.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5291659321497226290" border="0" /></a>Hybridising compositional strategies come from sound artist Rudi Arapahoe, who choreographs a sequence of elegiac pieces into a refined whole in <span style="font-style: italic;">Echoes From One To Another. </span><span>Perhaps the most liable of the whole SI roster to be embraced by contemporary home listening electronicists, Arapahoe's opus is the catalogue's most </span><span>artful and fully </span><span>developed in conceptualisation and realisation. Essentially a sonically-mediated journey from the moment of death through veiled passageways into the hereafter, </span><span style="font-style: italic;">EFOtA</span> mixes equal parts Pärt-ian holy minimalism with the ambient and post-classicisms of the Sylvain Chauveau-Max Richter camp and the gentler non-rock end of post-rock (Helios). A discreet distillate of Akira Rabelais’ <span style="font-style: italic;">Spellewauerynsherde</span> suggests itself via the fluttering and floating of hauntological female voices mixing with breathy flutings. An incantatory mise-en-scène develops, a remote hiss and shadowy aura suffusing proceedings with designer mystique, as discreet electronics rub gently against chamber-esque strummings of harp or guitar, or wistful piano wringing heartstrings. The whole falls in with the recent fixation with a sort of nouveau electronic purism, with pianistics and guitarings a la Sakamoto-Noto or Nishimoto (cf. <span style="font-style: italic;">Monologue</span>) to the fore. Still Arapahoe does well to occupy more desolate-delicate territory rather than the doom-ism of recent kindred spirit output from the Type/Miasmah axis of evil. Notice should, however, be served that there are times when the spiritual overtones may waft rather too strongly for those not totally comfy with such edges-of-New Age-flirting aromas, be they howsoever therapeutic.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://www.symbolicinteraction.net/img/sic005small.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 150px; height: 150px;" src="http://www.symbolicinteraction.net/img/sic005small.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a>Dif:use apparently started out as a laptop supergroup, including Don and Roel Funcken (Funckarma, Quench et al.), Cor Bolten (Mecano, Legiac), Hanno Leichtman (Static), and others. Several years on the Dif:use <span style="font-style: italic;">jus</span> is reduced to Don and Roel with Cor member Bolten assisting. The brothers, already familiar to beat-driven IDM/electronica heads under multiple aliases, work it out in largely beat-shunning mode in this incarnation. Sure, <span style="font-style: italic;">Mandrake</span> is dynamic and in forward motion, but distinctly less muscular than their customary strain. Dif:use is definitely the nearest the Funckens have come to an ambient setting, albeit one characterised by their particular hyperactive take on electronic texturalism, weaving spectral voices and strings into a synthetic stew with a myriad of unidentified floating sounding objects. Their dub-infused sensibility manifests in a production in which echo and reverberation abound, the overall hallucinogenic effect recalling previous Sending Orbs work as Legiac. At times the air kicked up by the mass of sounds and effects gets a little stuffy, and would benefit from a lighter more minimal touch, but overall a sophisticated set of digital soundscaping results, with all manner of processed drones and waveforms spooling out, here into Namlook-esque interstellar overdrive there into sci-fi lullaby.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://www.symbolicinteraction.net/img/sic008small.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 150px; height: 150px;" src="http://www.symbolicinteraction.net/img/sic008small.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a>Oakland producer Dustin Craig is behind Headphone Science’s excursion into pretty poptronica, <span style="font-style: italic;">Painted</span>. Fluttering textures swirl amidst a slew of ambient vocal samples on opener “5CM”, with station and airport announcements and engine roar patching into the drifting ennui of nonplace lingering and loss. “Life is a Dream” is a representative specimen, wherein an ultra-pretty keyboard motif resonates from within a teeming mass of machine clatter. Elsewhere Craig tends to put melodic figure too literally at the centre, as in the pianoid post-classicisms of “Makoto and Mai”, appeasing with blithe beats. The whole affair is one of light bites with light beats, in fact. Of the five remixes annexed to the set, Sokif lards glockenspiels over “Life is a Dream,” and in so doing tips the original over into blandishment and tweeness; Electricwest (Patrick Benolkin) does it better, injecting satisfying space and welcome wooze into his ambient hip hop hybridisation of “Spirits at Night”; Fugenn & The White Elephants finds in “Clouded in Treasures” an old-school ambient-techno/IDM workout of bleepy-bloop and banging and “Coil Online” is lost in translation by Broken Haze into a broken beat-cum-deep-chillout affair squiggled all over by pitchshifted piano graffiti. The Retail Sectors (Kentaro Togawa) re-conceives “Makoto & Mai” the only way he knows, completely removing it from its source sketch, and rendering it as a somewhat laboured postrock-meets-indie guitar workout.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://www.symbolicinteraction.net/img/sic011small.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 150px; height: 150px;" src="http://www.symbolicinteraction.net/img/sic011small.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a>Lowriders Deluxe is the work of four gents for whom this is the first collaboration. Mark Streatfield and Joseph Auer, beat-centric electronica-mongers known from other projects and labels (Zainetica, Cyan341, Rednetic, U-Cover) handle the keyboards and rhythms. The two team up here with guitarists Simon Thomas and Clive Burns, each player contributing processed percussion and FX to cook up an IDM-ambient fusion stew. Cocteau Twins, Spaceman 3 and Slowdive are all namechecked as influences, and <span style="font-style: italic;">Future Deluxe</span> certainly has something of their spirit secreted within its folds and rhizomes. A post-Pygmalion paradigm pokes through on “Offworld Colonies” and “Test 4 (Alternative Version)”, while the whole swims in a distillation of the ethereal reverb haze of Robin Guthrie. “Interlude” and “Internal 1” draw upon hip hop-tinged IDM templates more Streatfield’s end of the street, while reminiscent overall of the old-school 'ELM' of Global Communication and Black Dog evidently more Auer's. Much of the album in fact locates itself at the intersection between the two main protagonists’ styles – between deep Detroit and a more shadowy retro-futurism, the air filled with warm Warp winds and AI airs.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://www.symbolicinteraction.net/img/sic007small.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 150px; height: 150px;" src="http://www.symbolicinteraction.net/img/sic007small.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a><span style="font-style: italic;">Speaking Behind The Raindrops</span> begins ominously with xylophone and toy piano plonking, and a deliberately childlike voice intoning what might be doggerel or something about chocolate (clue: it’s called “Chocolate”). Izumi Misawa threatens to unleash a grisly playroom affair of J-pop lounge whimsy, which gratifyingly fails to fully manifest despite the uber-cutesy cast list of “vibraphone, marimba, glockenspiel, kalimba, moon-bell, hand cranked music box, kawai-toy piano, Schoenhut toy piano, bass-melodion, MFB, ion, CS-01, voice, kaoss-pad, effect, rooms, toys, many many percussions...” The ill-starred start in fact presages an odd assortment which is nowhere near as twee or queasy as the prologue suggests. Second piece, "Pray For Rain", turns its keyboards away from path of tweeness toward Reichian marimba minimalism, which, along with various chimes and processed effluvia and a discreet lulling beat, conspires to create a far more alluring piece of faux-chill electronica. "Chairs" follows up with further substance, locating emergent patterns of electro-blips within a subtle kick-throb and liquid bass, before coating this in <span style="font-style: italic;">musique concrète</span> curlicues, and Misawa's treated vox to create an avant J-Pop confection akin to a minimalised Bjork in tandem with Tujiko Noriko. The rest is less arresting, but replete with a ferment of abstract electronics, slightly wonky textures, found sound, field recordings. A cornucopia of processed plonkings and tuned tappings in effect. Would appeal to questing lovers of electro-acoustic bedroom-fiddlers, like the 'C's - Cokiyu, Caroline - and maybe a touch of the 'P's too - Psapp, Piana, et al.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://www.symbolicinteraction.net/img/sic006small.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 150px; height: 150px;" src="http://www.symbolicinteraction.net/img/sic006small.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a><span style="font-style: italic;">Relatively Down</span> sees David Newlyn move away from Boltfish beats (present albeit sparsely on <span style="font-style: italic;">Ancient Lights</span>) towards a more arrhythmic ambience. Short pieces involving processed field recordings providing peripheral resonance to solo guitar (cf. Moteer/Mobeer material) or piano études (cf. Library Tapes, Peter Broderick, et al.). The relatively more developed “Overview” differs in being a stretched out drone work. Newlyn has a way of adding an element of dissonance and quiet drone to transform what would otherwise be simplistic muzak pluck or plonk - details such as backwards fibrillations, a light feedback halo attending a piano part, or discreet treatments to acoustic guitar. The album as a whole is dream-like and pretty but parts of it feel like reprises not only of earlier tracks but of more of the same kind of pleasant parlour formalisms we’ve been getting the last few years from neo-classical inclined recontextualists from Max Richter to Helios/Goldmund. The mid-point "Send Me a Postcard" rather ruptures the dream-feel by going Boltfish, with tip-tap boxy-beats, plinky piano and retro synth wibble. The aforementioned “Overview” provides a return to atmospheric form, though a regrettable return to beaty blandishments a la Album Leaf is made, further disturbing the tone of designer naturalism set in the album's early passages. Ultimately, <span style="font-style: italic;">Relatively Down</span>’s UK provenance and its appearance on a Japanese imprint find congruence in a certain unassuming Haiku-esque ellipsis.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://www.symbolicinteraction.net/img/sic001small.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 150px; height: 150px;" src="http://www.symbolicinteraction.net/img/sic001small.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a>The Retail Sectors’ <span style="font-style: italic;">Subject Unknown</span> features label supremo Kentaro Togawa, who spins out ten axe-mediated pieces of string-driven things, while the likes of Si Begg, Maps and Diagrams, and Headphone Science provide remixes that seek to further extend the tracks’ possibilities. The album reverses the expected sequence by starting out with the remixes, none of which set the tone for the bulk of what is to follow. Tracks like “The Distress” and “The Lonely Shy Boys Fly To Sky Again and Again” are representative of the Retail Sectors house style, lyrical lattice-works of guitar chime and blur earnestly noodled out over a moody monobrow drum and bass bedrock. <span style="font-style: italic;">Subject Unknown</span> is generally more at the contemplative and wistful end of the post-rock spectrum, though a frequent compositional strategy sees the well-modulated guitar tones turned to fuzz-buzz squalls to give the music extra heft. <span style="font-style: italic;">The Starlight Silent Night</span> finds Togawa re-asserting this manifesto of sonic intent, the aforementioned weaving of guitar-pluckery with song-propelling drum machinery sounding much like what would have ensued had Yellow 6 gone over to Morr Music to do a series of instrumental indietronica covers of bands from, say, Explosions In The Sky to Interpol. A veritable orgy of plectronica, of strum’n’bass, of post-rock with a mid-80s style of drum machine thwack, this is evidently an earlier oeuvre, <a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://www.symbolicinteraction.net/img/sic009small.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; float: right; cursor: pointer; width: 150px; height: 150px;" src="http://www.symbolicinteraction.net/img/sic009small.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a>characterised by a certain uncultured and unfettered spirit. Togawa’s whisper-to-a-scream strategy is already much in evidence, with quiet-loud juxtapositions of crystal chord concatenations (“The First Step to Fly Again”, “Finally, People Unconsciously Hope That Their Savior Die”) and uncouth fuzz-blur lacerations (climaxes of “Forlorn Dreamland” and “Song About a Girl Who Killed Herself Yesterday”). Perhaps here Togawa's headstrong naiveté might be seen by some as one of the album's strengths.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://www.symbolicinteraction.net/img/sic002small.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 149px; height: 151px;" src="http://www.symbolicinteraction.net/img/sic002small.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a>Those wishing to sample SI’s wares without full commitment to this or that artist may avail themselves of the facility offered by the two compilations the label has put out in the short period of its operations. Its first full compilation, <span style="font-style: italic;">The Silence Was Warm</span>, shows it to be no slouch in the genre, showcasing several of their key roster men: Library Tapes (a pretty piano etude awash in vinyl crackle), Headphone Science (an elegant piano-based piece), and The Retail Sectors himself (a stately weave of chiming electric guitars and bass with a flame-broiled, drum-based attack escalating to a climactic roar). The set further serves to provide a platform for kindred spirit Japanese-based practitioners in the melodic electronica and ambient post-rock sphere: Tanaka Munechika, Oba Masahiro, and Aus (Yasuhiko Fukuzono), not to mention UK-types from Cactus Island like Maps & Diagrams and Weave. <span style="font-style: italic;"><br />The Silence Was Warm Volume 2</span> repeats the eclectic recipe of mellow electronica, neo-classical and post rock stylings, while extending it over two discs. SI rosterites like David Newlyn and Lowriders Deluxe are joined by natural bedfellows - Bitcrush, Ontayso, Yellow6, D_rradio, Cheju, and Quiroga, among other <a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://www.symbolicinteraction.net/img/sic010small.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; float: right; cursor: pointer; width: 150px; height: 150px;" src="http://www.symbolicinteraction.net/img/sic010small.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a>less familiar names - for a double dose. An array of cameos that serve to survey the range of stylings and archaeologies in the field while simultaneously seeking to provide a coherent thesis. CD2 achieves this latter more efficacy than the first, refined electronic pop of a 12k-Plop-Moteer stripe predominating, with the likes of Moskitoo, Aus, Pawn, and Phon-noir proposing well-turned out pieces. The album moves gradually towards more IDM-inflected atmospherica as it progresses, but is still recognisably SI-styled.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://www.symbolicinteraction.net/img/sic003small.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 150px; height: 150px;" src="http://www.symbolicinteraction.net/img/sic003small.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a>As if David Wenngren had not already conceived a sound attenuated, dusty and minimal enough with his Library Tapes project, there's now his Xeltrei, a new venture with a Swedish collaborator named Erica. <span style="font-style: italic;">Litotes</span> is a half-hour set of short pieces that combine piano with atmospherics wrought from field recordings and computer processing. The piano presents with the same sparse blur of decayed resonance as Wenngren self-plagiarises his Library Tapes. Occasional peripheralia – distant train clatter, marine environments, winds, and ghost machinery - add further atmospherics. The air of an archaeology of found fragments or artefacts prevails. The various found sounds and effects enhance atmosphere with a by now familiar anti-veneer of dirtied air and incidental noise scuffery. There’s an air of decay and mortality, and, again, an alignment with a tradition of similarly inclined work – of fragility-flaunting minimalism – and names like Goldmund, Sylvain Chauveau, and Rafael Anton Irisarri. Litotes is in fact a literary trope in which an affirmative is expressed by the negative of the contrary. Thus one might feel inclined to observe that Xeltrei’s <span style="font-style: italic;">Litotes</span> is an exercise in understatement which lives up to the aforementioned concept as a clever piece of musical forebearance that is nevertheless replete with meaning. Alternatively one might opine, litotically: not bad, not great. You decide.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://www.symbolicinteraction.net/img/sic004small.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 150px; height: 150px;" src="http://www.symbolicinteraction.net/img/sic004small.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a>Yaporigami, an artist characterized as purveying a breakcore-electronica-IDM hybrid, is trailed as dealing in “very sensitive subversive sounds by a Japanese paranoid.” His <span style="font-style: italic;">Saryu Sarva</span> is, truth be told, less distinguished by sensitivity or subversion than duration, with CD2 taking the contours of CD1 of Yap’s origami and delivering them to be refolded into shapes resembling still-vibrant forms of the now-defunct Merck and Defocus roster. Names like Quench, Machinedrum, Jimmy Edgar, and COH illustrate the ambit of coverage. On CD1 Yaporigami generally trafficks in upbeat to blithe to wistful melodics smoothed over an assertive, at times hyperactive, breakbeat base. A notable pattern typically involves the juxtaposition of gentle with ungentle, tracks like “thirteen” and “thirty one” letting music box-like chimings get roughed up by post-junglist assault, while the ambiance of “Nomad” allows its blithe synth-tone coasting to be irrupted onto by bass attack. Elsewhere lie tenebrous micro-symphonics (“HulL”) and sci-fi meditations (“Ars”). CD2 reels out fifteen varying retoolings, some cleaving to Yaporigami's originals (Yee-King, Con Brio), while others recontextualise them with other flavourings: Quench hip-hops “HulL” up, Machinedrum boom-baps “Citroen” down, while Jimmy Edgar surprisingly lets “lie” lie in beatless drift serenity. Elsewhere to be found are dark techno gear (Reteric), more breakcore spatter (Yu Miyahsita), and the odd slo-mo darkside crafting (COH).<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh5p3vFoDsYiylu4DbmZ4tFh99tTGBsLd5BLn89xLrVWsAh36XRhwYubzorUBIHdmjV3lT-3E_Y9zS_eLlAtelmX3gCxihOBukDT4dko8GXO-lP2oO5W7jVsSQSVOTR-Q5DMkzara-vFiwf/s1600-h/sic014small.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 150px; height: 150px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh5p3vFoDsYiylu4DbmZ4tFh99tTGBsLd5BLn89xLrVWsAh36XRhwYubzorUBIHdmjV3lT-3E_Y9zS_eLlAtelmX3gCxihOBukDT4dko8GXO-lP2oO5W7jVsSQSVOTR-Q5DMkzara-vFiwf/s200/sic014small.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5291659906532884514" border="0" /></a>Zèbra's <span style="font-style: italic;">The Black & White Album</span> is something of a shaggy dog stray finding a welcome within the SI homestead. According to Roel Meelkop and Frans de Waard (the man who gave you Goem, Kapotte Muziek, and Beequeen, among others), the recording was passed on by any number of potential patrons for being too off-kilter. And in fact much conceptual mischief and general oddity manifests, initially in external dressing, e.g. in scientific graphs with impenetrable textual commentaries, and track durations misrepresenting actual times. The set itself is a collage of techno and disco, noise-mongering, and sampledelic antics, “Dream Music for Diamand Redheads” being representative; it makes a tentative gestural nod towards Romanticist euphony before morphing into a marching slab of upright techno and a looped voice sample. “Last Night A DJ Saves My File” digitally as well as morphologically mangles Indeep’s 80s classic, peppering it with telephone rings and sundry spicy interpolations. In terms of sonic-conceptual forebears, de Waard and Meelkop's exercise in bricolage-styled playroom mischief - self-styled “meltpop” - bears a loop-y stamp that nods clearly towards the spirit of :zoviet*france, while the loony leaps from avant- to electro-/disco to pop remind of the likes of KLF or 808 State, or, in brief orgies of low-end technoid minimalism, nudge towards Pan Sonic. • <span style="font-weight: bold;">ALAN LOCKETT</span>alhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00423168824730574715noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4680931152558950057.post-58923776992581138642009-01-11T22:52:00.020-05:002009-01-11T23:52:01.995-05:00Installment 27 • Tripping the Cerebellum / An overview of BrainworkGerman electronic music of the past 30 or so years seems, at least to most aficionados, divided equally between two camps: post-Berlin school and post-techno. Perhaps this is a hasty, and broadly inaccurate observation, but face it: after Tangerine Dream and Klaus Schulze (not to mention Kraftwerk, Cluster, and a gaggle of other artists liberated from the confines of krautrock) burned their respective paths, many aspiring synthesists seemed to jettison original concepts for more easily constructed (and less cerebrally taxing) synth/sequencer hoedowns. Then along came techno, and then the very ambiguous “electronica” (slot within that enormous divide other sobriquets such as IDM and electronic listening music and ambient), and suddenly bedroom producers realized that the Teutonic regime didn’t have to mandate every note that emanated from their beloved Rolands. What really happened is that Germanic-based electronic music split off into two rarely overlapping concerns: those who preferred to slum in the TD/Schulze wasteland, and those energized enough by the worldwide electronic music movement to essentially abrogate pre-existing conditions.<br /><br />Musician Uwe Saher’s career began in the early 90s, right in that murky gray area where what was known as EM crossed paths with the burgeoning post-techno/electronica scenes exploding across Britain and Europe. Like many Germanic technicians of the era, he possessed a modest home studio decked out with many of the obvious tools of the trade (synths of the aforementioned Roland variety, plus Akai, Oberheim, Korg, Yamaha, and numerous effects units), his first forays into composition particularly redolent of its time. A good portion of his back catalog is self-released, and some it issued by Joerg Strawe’s Cue label, all of which realized in the finest DIY tradition. Looking back across Saher’s catalog, now ten discs strong, reveals an artist perfectly aware of what was happening in the day, richly endowed by his Teutonic legacy but well-versed in the happenings occurring on a daily basis around him. The worldwide trance phenomenon was hardly lost on Saher, who inaugurated his Element 4 project just for that purpose, and though not on par with the more richly varied Brainwork material, shows he was just as adept at bringing home barnstorming dance music as his goa compadrés. <br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg3qMGfFvjWVSGYlkIx2Dj2o6K-EQE95DmxmZX1Ew5xRu7vchgRTsKNZtztyyOkKAHe8Cla6mzYkVXj5iwTyu4RMMVLmyVDrAWi0kaYA6G_q7d-EDmnmp8Ut5EjYnHowRbo-3R0vc0Wgpg/s1600-h/sunrise.JPG"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 200px; height: 198px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg3qMGfFvjWVSGYlkIx2Dj2o6K-EQE95DmxmZX1Ew5xRu7vchgRTsKNZtztyyOkKAHe8Cla6mzYkVXj5iwTyu4RMMVLmyVDrAWi0kaYA6G_q7d-EDmnmp8Ut5EjYnHowRbo-3R0vc0Wgpg/s200/sunrise.JPG" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5290251939225350210" /></a>Listening now to his 1991 debut <span style="font-style:italic;">Sunrise</span>, 17 years on in a world with a (to say the least) decidedly different musical climate, one might almost think it primitive, naïve even, and in many respects it is. Tracks such as “Dance of Dolphins” and “The Walk” are equal parts Jarre and Vangelis, irising synth sweeps that are often submerged in rapid-fire sequencer pulsations, but even from the outset it’s clear that Saher’s talents, nascent and evolving, were considerable. His gift for composition, and, yes, melody (sometimes a dirty word when discussing most European synth/sequencer artists), is evident and considerable; though all his recordings possess a wealth of arresting sounds, it’s important to understand that he obviously spent enormous time working out the best ways to make his synths sing. <a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjyD4CAQ1WiCFlMOAUACpDpBL26jHjgVgAlIoe5UCjLEwhe1YH4VJB-MvjlHJeGHJyMpWRleFIpqYJBDAWvm8I16Pvi6iFbE4R1zooCIPkEzALxMQ7yeDdXC3WmGXijkO3mVQ1ncyijXdY/s1600-h/brainotronic.jpg"><img style="float:right; margin:0 0 10px 10px;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 200px; height: 200px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjyD4CAQ1WiCFlMOAUACpDpBL26jHjgVgAlIoe5UCjLEwhe1YH4VJB-MvjlHJeGHJyMpWRleFIpqYJBDAWvm8I16Pvi6iFbE4R1zooCIPkEzALxMQ7yeDdXC3WmGXijkO3mVQ1ncyijXdY/s200/brainotronic.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5290252985418848258" /></a>On the follow-up, <span style="font-style:italic;">Brainotronic</span>, the entirety of the pieces make use of the “tronic” suffix in their titles (“Bellotronic”, “Funnytronic”, et al), and though somewhat gimmicky, Saher’s gift for play and compositional exuberance is heartily rendered throughout. Mind you, too, that these early records contain short, concise works; crafted during a time when the 20-minute piece was de rigueur in post-TD EM; Saher was practically alone amongst colleagues who never met a motif they didn’t like, or felt could go on for hours. Apparently, pieces like the Robert Schroeder-like “Rockotronic”, with its galloping drumbeats and triumphant synths, and “Discotronic”, which reoriented electro-pop for inheritors of the Teutonic blueprint, suited Saher’s mood just fine; this disc doesn’t remain stationary for nary a moment—brash, juiced-up and fiery, it often out-does Jarre at his own game, with a deeper bottom-end that Jean-Michel could only dream about.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi2BpZJg3x9JRdPYAbHHN3434GeEg6iq0r1bv6NW8IvH9yEB0YjcQoxuSrFVWRBL56hGHO_aq6e6rwYsvNunCqt1NzvU2fossWlMlw0UDCH9lXD-PD-9OGe3AZ2We0bPrr4o8Ah-DL3y_I/s1600-h/roots.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 200px; height: 199px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi2BpZJg3x9JRdPYAbHHN3434GeEg6iq0r1bv6NW8IvH9yEB0YjcQoxuSrFVWRBL56hGHO_aq6e6rwYsvNunCqt1NzvU2fossWlMlw0UDCH9lXD-PD-9OGe3AZ2We0bPrr4o8Ah-DL3y_I/s200/roots.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5290252550582257506" /></a>Then along comes 1993’s <span style="font-style:italic;">Back to the Roots</span>, and, sure to its title, all bets are off. We are now back in Dream-land, where the sequencer is king presiding over a phantastical landscape alive with kaleidoscopic electronics splattered vividly like a painter’s hues across an immense, stark white canvas. But, keeping to the credo imbuing his shorter works, Saher simply reapplies that technique to empower and flesh out the pieces here, giving both his ideas and machines the necessary room to breathe and radiate. The opening twelve minute “Singing Seas” again makes ample use of Schroeder-esque drum patterns, while Saher alternates between chords that coo, whistle, and pump up the rhythmic undertow. “Analogic” partakes of some of the more cerebral noises so beloved by TD circa <span style="font-style:italic;">Force Majeure </span>or <span style="font-style:italic;">Tangram</span>, strange spooky sounds that Saher weaves between crystalline arpeggios, burgeoning sequencer, and other shiny, reflective surfaces. The fifteen-minute “Desert Trail” benefits from quite a magnetic sequencer line that, although certainly on this side of Dream-y, percolates through a swirling soundscape just alien and awry enough to transcend simple genre music. <br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhr0a4adFgqZreoZb4qoPGD5xpUx_XaiUGYNPP-ciCbgKOYWPW-MGmCaTKESMDs7PUK33395hL9TFe1tziWnn01a2c3e3nsta1KE-cjoMztIkS_iX6P320Yg9AkOnu8mgpOB8phdRhlE0o/s1600-h/rhythmbase.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 200px; height: 199px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhr0a4adFgqZreoZb4qoPGD5xpUx_XaiUGYNPP-ciCbgKOYWPW-MGmCaTKESMDs7PUK33395hL9TFe1tziWnn01a2c3e3nsta1KE-cjoMztIkS_iX6P320Yg9AkOnu8mgpOB8phdRhlE0o/s200/rhythmbase.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5290253360527576514" /></a>1994’s <span style="font-style:italic;">Rhythm Base</span> is an altogether different kettle of fish. In fact, just four albums in, it’s evident Saher’s got a firm grip on his muse and knows how to massage it to his advantage. The “extra” sixth track is dedicated to The Orb, and, after experiencing this record in its entirety, one can surmise how Saher’s become quite taken with Paterson and co. In fact, Saher not only embraces similar Orbian infatuations with oscillating melodies and electronics that shift like great sonic tidal patterns (such as on “Aquanautic Excursion”), but, like Paterson, he truly gets in touch with his inner Froese here. Forget any charges of derivativeness, either; Saher’s morphed into quite the canny operator at this juncture, erecting a foundation that would only get richer in both tone and execution. But…drink deep of <span style="font-style:italic;">Rhythm Base</span> first; this is the good stuff. “Slow Motion” might move at a languid pace, but the curlicue synths and bubbling sequencer motifs if anything suggest a lazy afternoon moonwalking. Saher revs up the title track with a whole fusillade of congas and shakers, the better of which props up the swelling symphony of chords with some chunky bass and fluttering keyboard stabs, so that right when those beefy snares kick in you realize you’re not in Berlin anymore, Toto. And that final extra track Saher so Orb-dedicated? A brilliant swab of ambient techno beauty it is, too, trancey synths, woozy bass and percussive magmas that also happen to channel Biosphere of the same era, and is every bit as galvanizing as whatever R&S, Rising High or Eye Q were throwing up at the time. One of Saher’s best records.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiz6xC6AKf0NTpmGnUVNzb-aTbGl3vnBQMwdrJBL7ZfZqDeZ8UL5YrdEDtV5EQscoBTLgPW0YoWPix7YCsxF9fz9x1V3t2gCR8lijfyWdCiv2JpoiY5Jd8W12yfhAllkrr5ls31or7rg90/s1600-h/melodyambience.JPG"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 200px; height: 199px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiz6xC6AKf0NTpmGnUVNzb-aTbGl3vnBQMwdrJBL7ZfZqDeZ8UL5YrdEDtV5EQscoBTLgPW0YoWPix7YCsxF9fz9x1V3t2gCR8lijfyWdCiv2JpoiY5Jd8W12yfhAllkrr5ls31or7rg90/s200/melodyambience.JPG" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5290253197204499410" /></a>The following year Saher issued Brainwork V, <span style="font-style:italic;">Melody & Ambience</span>, two hours of music sprawled out over two discs that seemed like both a culmination, mark of intent, and developmental statement all at once. There is an immense amount of music to ingest here, Saher honing his craft along dimensions previously charted (Vangelis’ influence remains keenly felt, as does the aforementioned Jarre, and, of course, the Berlin School grads), but across the records’ breadth Saher continues to push against the constrictions of genre music, in manners reasonably successful by any measure. Stylistic embroidery and rampant eclecticism aside, enough wonderful sounds dance out of the stereofield to satisfy both the jaded and virginal. Disc one, the “Melody” section, does travel in varying moods and architectures: “A Small Movement” and “Memories”, for example, sport fetching, almost catchy percussive tracts amidst their brightly thwacked synth constructs that stop just short of being cloying thanks to Saher’s innate economy of means. “Warm Wind” and “Jamaican Holidays” both dabble a bit in new-agey climates that doesn’t do the rest of the record any favors, a path that Saher will indulge in soon enough; a sense of “melancholy” and personal issues seems to permeate the “Melody” disc for the most part, but Saher’s one for generosity when it comes to spreading the wealth. The second disc, nicked “Ambience”, sets the controls for the heart of the sun, redeeming most everything that’s come before it, Saher letting those Berlin influences erupt in cataclysmic glory. “Sonic Vortices” vibrates and weaves its sequencer filigree in sumptuous, technological delight, Saher’s synths glittering like the light of refracted stars. “Liquid Mind” begins with a subdued electronic thrush that recalls Patrick O’Hearn’s earliest missives, but once Saher brings in the interstellar sound sources that twinkle in the background, there’s no doubt we’re in wide-eyed space music territory for sure, planetarium-poised for quick liftoff. Beautiful.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhQ5eNStInpCi6YU2XdKMiURsp1vy9_WMOIS9FaVhy6tmZ8B4iT3P5RFfiJFiv4SKXDmXcjK0ef6PaeF3pZpjQTdnM6mUcg8bPA6dJ4atYJjT-qxnX8Gtvc43jqumcadeGoVy07vm-N3J0/s1600-h/bwlive.jpeg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 200px; height: 198px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhQ5eNStInpCi6YU2XdKMiURsp1vy9_WMOIS9FaVhy6tmZ8B4iT3P5RFfiJFiv4SKXDmXcjK0ef6PaeF3pZpjQTdnM6mUcg8bPA6dJ4atYJjT-qxnX8Gtvc43jqumcadeGoVy07vm-N3J0/s200/bwlive.jpeg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5290256517827796466" /></a>It was surely only a matter of time before Saher plied his trade in front of an appreciative audience, and that became reality with the unveiling of 1996’s <span style="font-style:italic;">Live & Unreleased</span>, culled from performances given in 1993 and 95. Saher dips into his already respectable back catalog to excavate some chestnuts ripe for the picking, sliding easily back and forth between zippy ambient techno tropes and full-on Berlin School orchestrations. That he can juggle these respective genres so effortlessly demonstrates a grace gained from the expense of getting to know his synths real up close and personal. Aided and abetted by guitarist Gerd Lubos (who also helms the post-TD-inflected Strange Inside) no doubt adds some differing textures and a sharper contour to Saher’s aural fantasies, but by no means is Lubos mere window dressing—if anything, his respectably tasty licks and wailing cries suggest a choice Radio Massacre International set, albeit minus a third hired hand. So what arises is the zesty “Black Seagull”, which imagines what Rupert Hine might have done to <span style="font-style:italic;">Berlinische kosmische</span> had he worked with Froese and Co. instead of The Fixx, Lupos’ expertly slicing his way through Saher’s beatbox bounce and candy-coated synths. “Mindwaves” wraps and whorls its symphonic strings around some more engaging 90s techno rhythms, ear confectionary of the highest order, but the album’s centerpiece is surely the 19 minute live version of “Sonic Vortices”, which finds Saher’s synths in rapid transit, his sequencers the stuff of locomotive dreams, choreographed in stark, repetitive tonalities that fairly ignite the atmosphere.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiR81cnLzbSzyjzuyuS5_zQfTCV-mK1jQzNu3V6Q3ogByyv26rTBjfYppiwkc2kAV8IDveIPJDbK-qY3qjQTvLvDFaO1ijbxDU0XAGrLHXIXL5bjCjwxDNoqvXuLQ6yk-V1sMpjE7py2vA/s1600-h/sensual.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 200px; height: 198px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiR81cnLzbSzyjzuyuS5_zQfTCV-mK1jQzNu3V6Q3ogByyv26rTBjfYppiwkc2kAV8IDveIPJDbK-qY3qjQTvLvDFaO1ijbxDU0XAGrLHXIXL5bjCjwxDNoqvXuLQ6yk-V1sMpjE7py2vA/s200/sensual.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5290255881298771682" /></a>It was at this point in the mid 90s that Saher seemed to reach a stylistic impasse of sorts in his music. He’d been steadily releasing an album at roughly yearly intervals, clearly a man keen to mark out his time instead of trucking in quickdraw redundancies. His work, to again draw comparisons with Robert Schroeder, began to take on more “personal” qualities that briefly flirted with “new age” connotations. 1997’s <span style="font-style:italic;">Sensual Reflections</span>, much like Schroeder’s <span style="font-style:italic;">Pegasus</span>, is a more casually “elegant” affair, adrift with laissez-faire synths, arrangements buttressed by dew-eyed trip-hop rhythms, and music courting commercial avenues Saher seemed to ignore in years past. It’s his least demanding, and possibly least interesting, recording, but it’s not without its moments: “Dreaming China” uses the kind of Oriental spliffs favored by the era’s most crass Narada artists but survives thanks to Saher’s reliance on synths that skyjump instead of saccharinize. “Thrill Zone” revisits slow trance territory, its punchy bassline and opulent beats a feature in numerous techno dreams of late 90s chillout rooms, but for the most part Saher appears too preoccupied with the clichés already becoming rampant and stillborn at the time, the flavors of which drag most of these compositions through the mud.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjE-XVzbfzVy0XlMOF9r8Lbskl8_rkp3GFc_AiBLRg9h009xqU1ig-OR90MrjgR2naT0CpvUhqI4ILdidyHRONyV-c6pG7BN7zF5WMt40KGzuo40VoXwpz79Rh5q7zu3xgFEwAVPj2wueI/s1600-h/backtofuture.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 200px; height: 198px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjE-XVzbfzVy0XlMOF9r8Lbskl8_rkp3GFc_AiBLRg9h009xqU1ig-OR90MrjgR2naT0CpvUhqI4ILdidyHRONyV-c6pG7BN7zF5WMt40KGzuo40VoXwpz79Rh5q7zu3xgFEwAVPj2wueI/s200/backtofuture.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5290252224472978946" /></a>In retrospect, <span style="font-style:italic;">Sensual Reflections</span> now indeed feels like the aberration in Saher’s catalog that it appeared to be at the time; later (and most recent) successive recordings bear this out. <span style="font-style:italic;">Back to Future</span> brings back the Berlin School model in all its stripped down glory, except that the artist has apparently discovered the joys of British drum 'n' bass, sending his brash sequencers tumbling amidst a spiky forest of whiplashed snares, upping his BPMs to near frantic levels. The opening “4AM Machines” illustrates this brilliantly, Saher ensnarling a sequencer line of hyperdriven extremes smack dab in the middle of a veritable tornado of chopping synth effects. “Sanddunes” continues the assault on the listener’s imaginarium, though Saher does in fact tone down his propulsion systems to encompass a more immersive sonic landscape; LTJ Bukem this isn’t, but, then again, Saher doesn’t pretend to be, as he’s just as comfortable ekeing out his own singular voice amongst the d & b glitterati. Infectious, to coin a descriptor, lively in execution and engaging as all get out. <a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg1lyQSPT81c8aj5MsfC7qvXL1tcePNcsLWEsq1mu_X32jQeqAOd1y5A__vOpQ6rTrHpBkUl3PEb8DsUQh2CIiS72bUZ4yYbzkRSjoiuhQMQAcefwG5syG-aLGDtPJb_0Tu46J4vFpBOMw/s1600-h/soundclouds.jpg"><img style="float:right; margin:0 0 10px 10px;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 200px; height: 200px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg1lyQSPT81c8aj5MsfC7qvXL1tcePNcsLWEsq1mu_X32jQeqAOd1y5A__vOpQ6rTrHpBkUl3PEb8DsUQh2CIiS72bUZ4yYbzkRSjoiuhQMQAcefwG5syG-aLGDtPJb_0Tu46J4vFpBOMw/s200/soundclouds.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5290253901867350802" /></a>2006’s <span style="font-style:italic;">Soundclouds</span> then does a literal about-face, trading beat-jiggery for the more familiar realms of abject space. It is of course the space environs long explored by numerous Germanic astronauts previously, but over the years Saher’s hardly lost his way with a sequenced phrase—such exalted moments arise here pretty much constantly. “Rainpearls” gusts across barren plains, riding currents of prismatic bursts of percussion, at turns majestic and enigmatic. Saher is back to unspooling his creations across double-digit lengths, and the results are fairly remarkable. “Silverlake” could easily be a lost Schulze piece from the 70s, except that Saher’s whooshing Moogs and bedazzled choruses sound utterly contemporary—no mean feat. The 15 minute “Sky Trains” is the highlight, though, vaporous squalls emerging out of a black sky to do battle with coarse synths spitting metal and beats industrialized out of silicone jelly, the kind of piece the Front Line Assembly chaps wished they could concoct out of Delerium if only they weren’t so myopic. Saher’s course of action, all pomp and circumstance, trumps such notions, in spades.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhnSrsYYyVgToiHk6-xJS-QjmkwyKvndYC1hMAhOwXMQWito14UwzgK1YyUuaWXWlvwauPDH_WIXV7PrmmvnLE-6FwjXw-XY-30MMAJESQpjU0EBko35FrBKmnh171vHbNUuOfPpvON5Vc/s1600-h/ten.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 200px; height: 200px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhnSrsYYyVgToiHk6-xJS-QjmkwyKvndYC1hMAhOwXMQWito14UwzgK1YyUuaWXWlvwauPDH_WIXV7PrmmvnLE-6FwjXw-XY-30MMAJESQpjU0EBko35FrBKmnh171vHbNUuOfPpvON5Vc/s200/ten.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5290253516799343634" /></a>Which brings us to the present, and Saher’s most recent outing, the 2008-released <span style="font-style:italic;">Ten</span>, so-christened as an anniversary release for the artist in addition to his, well, tenth Brainwork document. Saher makes no bones about this being an unabashed Berlin School “homage”, which it most gloriously is. The man obviously delights and remains transfixed with the art of old-school analog synthesis, where the tactile twisting of knobs and flicking of relays made such hands-on necessities the prime component of much classic synth music from the pre-digital eon. As such, <span style="font-style:italic;">Ten</span> not only feels like a summation to some degree, it reaffirms Saher’s uncontested command of his studio, its tools, and those beloved, crusty, molten metal sounds. “Traffic” churns and burns, its sputtering sequencers infused by the power of a thousand transformers. “Atlantica” erupts out of the stereofield like a supernova, Saher squeezing what little air is left out of his patchcords, his electronics atomizing the studio. “Pacifica”, all 21 minutes of it, is so enthralling in its beautifully etched simplicity—a low-strung rhythmic figure moving up and down the scale, enshrouded in glowing LED readouts and the luster of distant synth starshine—it should read as a template for any young upstart completely unaware of what to do with his newly acquired modulars. Across a still-evolving palette of recordings, it’s evident Saher’s in firm control of his inner dualities; all Brainwork and much play ensures Uwe’ll never be a dull boy. <span style="font-weight:bold;">DARREN BERGSTEIN</span> • <a href="http://www.brainwork.net">www.brainwork.net</a>Darren Bergstein (Editor/Publisher)http://www.blogger.com/profile/03979361482585766858noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4680931152558950057.post-39511127464949154012008-12-19T00:21:00.016-05:002008-12-19T12:11:20.192-05:00Installment 26<span style="font-weight:bold;">ASHLEY/ROEDELIUS/STORY Errata (Nepenthe)<br />BLUETECH Phoenix Rising (Somnia)<br />TAYLOR DEUPREE & KENNETH KIRSCHNER May (Room40)<br />HIBERNATION Some Things Never Change (Aleph Zero)<br />MAGGOTAPPLEWONDERLAND Shards of Subtle Being (Bitetheapple)<br />MARK MAHONEY / M. PECK Starfest 2007 (Mahoney & Peck)<br />MOON WIRING CLUB Shoes Off and Chairs Away (Gecophonic)<br />MOTIONFIELD Optical Flow (Somnia)<br />ROEDELIUS Back Soon (Barking Green)<br />VATAFF PROJECT Kalitz (Aleph Zero)</span><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgaiLxYqVJrNCwIHq6y2035cS4jyg1Fhzo2N9tiOTReP91xGkUEyOET3da99I8zL_2VA7pmu4j9aY1F2YMuw-vWpv7pq5_7zcCJFs9KfwfdEdLXFeQEvBeuXFVZkYC3750sD7eKjnimocc/s1600-h/arse.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 200px; height: 200px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgaiLxYqVJrNCwIHq6y2035cS4jyg1Fhzo2N9tiOTReP91xGkUEyOET3da99I8zL_2VA7pmu4j9aY1F2YMuw-vWpv7pq5_7zcCJFs9KfwfdEdLXFeQEvBeuXFVZkYC3750sD7eKjnimocc/s200/arse.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5281371095261555250" /></a>Attempting to chart the history of the Dwight Ashley/Hans-Joachim Roedelius/Tim Story triad would easily fill a chapter in any encyclopedia electronica, so it’s sufficient to say that between the three of them they make one helluva brave noise. Ashley and Story already have a number of excellent collaborations between them, including the minor classic <span style="font-style:italic;">A Desperate Serenity</span> on the defunct Multimood label (well worth seeking out); Story and Roedelius have recorded together as Lunz, with two worthwhile discs to their credit. Now the three are an item, their debut <span style="font-style:italic;">Errata</span> credited to the puzzlingly nicked A.R.S. If you discard whatever ridicule (or irony) might be gleaned from that abbreviation, you’d discover the well-wrought potential met and delivered on the trio’s first long-player. Who does what is difficult to discern, which often makes for the best combinations: both Story and Roedelius no doubt contribute most of the acoustic piano parts, but all three masterfully tweak their electronic gadgetry in blissful anonymity. Basically, there’s nothing else out there that sounds quite like this. “Incubator” reincarnates early Cluster thanks to its chimera-like structure, one part quacking pulse, one part purring background noise, numerous parts strangely flanged electronics. On “Gefallig”, someone’s tickling the ivory plains under a shuffling, fading sunset of a rhythm while faux horns blow and delicate if tenebrious effects phosphordot the landscape. Both “Inclement” and “Squiggle” chart murky terrain, peculiar electronic doodles zipping about like elfish simulacra; squishy rhythms become a gamelan orchestra conducted by astronauts as stabs of rasping synth wail in protest. For reasons unknown, the closing “Ruminator” brings things back to “normal”, its Budd-ing pianos suggesting early evening come down from those atmospheric highs. Quasi-chilling but not chilled, this is a trio light on its feet, nimble of phrase and savvy in composition, trading dark and light with extraordinary finesse and crystal clarity. <span style="font-weight:bold;">DARREN BERGSTEIN</span> • <a href="http://www.nepenthemusic.com">www.nepenthemusic.com</a><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEihWO3EZvUoS37iU7mplkI6-_y7Cd7Qj7Or_XKRu2illTVhQrkK71vYH_1Zo80wkqka2cg8IbtVAdVe0Y5RSU7Tcl2Z8QPPpRqK8nKcYiAvqTWOQgys1eaHDGlbUvYLEHfAA9pl8S8smzk/s1600-h/bluetech.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 200px; height: 200px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEihWO3EZvUoS37iU7mplkI6-_y7Cd7Qj7Or_XKRu2illTVhQrkK71vYH_1Zo80wkqka2cg8IbtVAdVe0Y5RSU7Tcl2Z8QPPpRqK8nKcYiAvqTWOQgys1eaHDGlbUvYLEHfAA9pl8S8smzk/s200/bluetech.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5281370964498215378" /></a>Evan Bartholomew’s Somnia label, all releases exquisitely packaged in hand-sown paper folders, is fast becoming this decade’s label of note, poised to set a standard which others must inevitably follow. The label muddies through the genre underbrush, coloring outside the lines to neatly offset pigeonholing and keep us consumers wanting more. One of Bartholomew’s more gregarious aliases is Bluetech, making his Somnia debut with <span style="font-style:italic;">Phoenix Rising</span>, proving the point most emphatically that Somnia often plays out like a more open-minded Fax for the aughts. “My Dear Friend Kronos” and “What the Night Reveals” are a feisty one-two punch, both tracks’ ticktock metronomic probosci delving deep into layers of quicksand synth, gurgling electrical surges, and cranky outer atmospheres whose drunken lilt keeps the listener constantly off balance. “Riding the Sky Elevator” shows Bartholomew in top form, its spitting, blackened beats and rusting electronics a bleaching out of IDM tropes long in need of some retooling. The closing “Invocation” tidies things up quite beautifully, thanks to Alyssa Palmer’s hallucinatory vocalizations, Bartholomew one of the few synth stylists out there able to properly massage voice out of the vacuum of software. <a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiIjJTeP4_FDEewDpnuUbFGov930O9Rqkvs5DEUsTjtvb1kixt7EuHkuava_5-KYT_dPn8SD_sl_vWS-4872aCMsOvjJ9VVZRS4J_QKdt7tHHc9bPfCK6h8gBkn6yUe587CRYSl-bePmWA/s1600-h/motionfield.jpg"><img style="float:right; margin:0 0 10px 10px;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 200px; height: 200px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiIjJTeP4_FDEewDpnuUbFGov930O9Rqkvs5DEUsTjtvb1kixt7EuHkuava_5-KYT_dPn8SD_sl_vWS-4872aCMsOvjJ9VVZRS4J_QKdt7tHHc9bPfCK6h8gBkn6yUe587CRYSl-bePmWA/s200/motionfield.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5281371825568977346" /></a>Motionfield (one Petter Friberg) toy with similar phraseology, but achieves his ends in more studied, considered, contemplative ways. <span style="font-style:italic;">Optical Flow </span>is a simply gorgeous piece of ambient shoegazing minus the requisite guitars and affective singing. Friberg is a man of obvious patience and it shows in these eight fragile creations. “Embrace” glides effortlessly on carpetbagger synths that flutter gently on shafts of sunlight, its uncomplicated beat at once simple yet strident, propelling the rising sounds forward like dandelion seeds surfing a breeze. The caresses of “Nightwalk”, the pitterpatter of little beats tiptoeing amongst a soft underbelly of glitches, imagine Biosphere and Patrick O’Hearn consummating their respective aesthetics in one very passionate shimmerscape of pulsing ambience; “Midnight Metro”, adding percolating rhythms to the mix, takes you out from under the edge of night to wisk you far into the dreamier underground, where sprites dance on liquid waveforms. Another gem in an already sparkling catalog—Somnia only shines on 777 of their crazy diamonds, so get ‘em fast before the light fades altogether. <span style="font-weight:bold;">DARREN BERGSTEIN</span> • <a href="http://www.somniasound.com">www.somniasound.com</a><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEilAFbSRNvaicoKn-F1bAXf5CjqZfYuqW9TkghAPsJp-MISIGNXz76mpSDIgUzVK-qR4NbSXKV-Ql3UuWZrHKIbXbvqHDUxf4qr11tFg5duA9hxqFnBKomg-92AKNi46elSyiL8ZzE49V0/s1600-h/may.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 200px; height: 200px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEilAFbSRNvaicoKn-F1bAXf5CjqZfYuqW9TkghAPsJp-MISIGNXz76mpSDIgUzVK-qR4NbSXKV-Ql3UuWZrHKIbXbvqHDUxf4qr11tFg5duA9hxqFnBKomg-92AKNi46elSyiL8ZzE49V0/s200/may.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5281371217363663362" /></a><span style="font-style:italic;">May</span> was originally performed by Taylor Deupree and Kenneth Kirschner as their contribution to the OFF Festival in Lisbon, Portugal. With the latter at the ivories, the former manipulated the strings inside, and both simultaneously partook in the electronic processing of the ensuing sound. The results are microtonal swarms and feint oscillations that combine to surge like waves through immobile clouds of scintillating particles. Listening to them is like being drawn into a gently swirling funnel of sound. It envelops and absorbs you. At the same time, although the persistence of electronics is high, the physicality of the off-centre, detuned piano notes wash oddly against its central pulse, opening elastic spaces in the mix. Consequently, the work is static yet agitated, very limited in terms of materials yet sonically rich, concentrated yet opening out onto vast expanses. Suddenly yet quite nartually, around the seventeen minute mark, the piano shuffles out from the crystalline haven of tranquility of before and finds a moment of lucidity, a sharp, well articulated, and highly despairing, melody that brings the fragility and vulnerability of the arrangement to the forefront. From there, the silver confetti trails of sound build to a formidable and foreboding wall of noise, against which strained, high pitched piano chords are like someone wincing. The duo then tie up their loose ends, allowing the piano to plunge into the proceedings less and less, as gleaming details of noise spread out to form a cave full of growls. It is this tension between ruminative sorrow and sparkling processing that makes this album a strong, affecting listen. <span style="font-weight:bold;">MAX SCHAEFER</span> • <a href="http://www.room40.org<br />">www.room40.org<br /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjnTrr21bxPy7a8qggU_7IPEiA4epqyttHsqWiH1ZNjYnVJw1VgJoq-Bc7m9uLK1vkA37kBpAi-b3jvA25NGQM5XaKKSxZQOuwKi5lAiOQIpr_N-CQUbUodNiD22N3HaZEQPERDx417px4/s1600-h/hibernation.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 200px; height: 177px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjnTrr21bxPy7a8qggU_7IPEiA4epqyttHsqWiH1ZNjYnVJw1VgJoq-Bc7m9uLK1vkA37kBpAi-b3jvA25NGQM5XaKKSxZQOuwKi5lAiOQIpr_N-CQUbUodNiD22N3HaZEQPERDx417px4/s200/hibernation.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5281371359774318802" /></a>So where has that old genre warhorse ambient dub gone, you say? Well, in the first place, nowhere: the bastard child of trance—goa or psychedelic, take your pick—just went underground since its 90s heyday, ready to resurface when the climate’s right, usually via labels like Israel’s best-kept secret Aleph Zero. In that part of the world, trance remains a non-maligned form, incorporating vast swathes of culture into its maw, crawling out of pithy mindlessness into the realm of niche respectability. Hibernation’s debut leads the charge: the product of astute programmer Seb Taylor, <span style="font-style:italic;">Some Things Never Change</span> has the epic sweep of a historical novel, the tracks informing a progression across post-techno music’s shifting dichotomy carped from nearly 20 years of rhythmic bluster. “Trickle” manages to patch together cascading harps, angelic vocals, digital beatslaps and whipping slo-mo triphop rhythms into a carefully balanced, artfully composed amalgam of contemporary exotica. “Lazy Radio” spins the dial at lightning speed, playing fast and furious with its urban blush of beat, 50s jazz whimsy, Africanized fillips and stringy synth effects. Only problem is that Taylor best keep his wits about him: “Glitch Police” muckrakes along a disingenuousness axis, more concerned with hackneyed lounge lizardeering than aberrant digital discourse. At least the later “Seven Steps” redeems the album’s flaccid middle, a lavish trek across Miles of smooth Rhodes that struggles to redeem those airless 90s wastelands coined “acid jazz.” Indeed, Taylor’s obvious love for models horn-swoggled and steeped in swing give this generally appealing debut just the right amount of street cred, even if mandated by the rank and file of the digital domain. <span style="font-weight:bold;">DARREN BERGSTEIN</span> • <a href="http://www.aleph-zero.info">www.aleph-zero.info</a><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjI-Hv-0X1MIb5ZNzAp5GnwN_6WClra6pOiXamMbQicwHO4WSyRrNPvQm7dFHAdnA4ML_V9gADkN3cKJ9nmzb_ytkINdK_l0pRMyiFNnVpdmtkQPqcxBIv34kP0QWRvhyphenhyphen3_R_uZyATraXU/s1600-h/starfest.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 180px; height: 180px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjI-Hv-0X1MIb5ZNzAp5GnwN_6WClra6pOiXamMbQicwHO4WSyRrNPvQm7dFHAdnA4ML_V9gADkN3cKJ9nmzb_ytkINdK_l0pRMyiFNnVpdmtkQPqcxBIv34kP0QWRvhyphenhyphen3_R_uZyATraXU/s200/starfest.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5281371668765266802" /></a>Created to honor the 50th anniversary of the Sputnik launch, synthesists Mark Mahoney and M. Peck make us believe space is truly the place on <span style="font-style:italic;">Starfest 2007</span>, recorded live in front of what must have been a spellbound audience. Taking their cues from the usual 70s Teutonic suspects, the duo tweak the model just enough to bring some much-needed vitality to an often tired genre. “Initial Launch” begins as you might expect, with requisite radio broadcasts pinging everything’s a go, but once the sequencers begin chugging away both artists let loose with a barrage of astringent effects. “Entering A Foreign Atmosphere” simultaneously becalms, bedazzles and bewilders, twinkling synth stardust across frozen tundra, all wrapped up in a twisting corkscrew of oscillating pitches and forlorn mellotron. “Alien Shore and Unworldly Outpost” might take electronic music’s vocabulary a bit literally (the ambiguity of science fiction imagery is too critical to its audio analog), but Mssrs. Mahoney and Peck are synth wizards of a high order, reaching deep into the looking-glass to extract a fusillade of sonic lifeforms that tickle our respective fancies—coolness. <a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjTzT__dTKAw5PEXInsgAkIKb6AupVamuFO_AsAwh4Eg2HsrxECTMbChjarItELWBjgx0SPvVw7qjYFZJf7I1pApbAzJwEJcU62e6p3pki7z_ki3aDFVQzH7MypeTH52jxpOd8YBOeTptw/s1600-h/maggotapplewonderland2.jpg"><img style="float:right; margin:0 0 10px 10px;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 200px; height: 200px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjTzT__dTKAw5PEXInsgAkIKb6AupVamuFO_AsAwh4Eg2HsrxECTMbChjarItELWBjgx0SPvVw7qjYFZJf7I1pApbAzJwEJcU62e6p3pki7z_ki3aDFVQzH7MypeTH52jxpOd8YBOeTptw/s200/maggotapplewonderland2.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5281371506128550706" /></a>Peck is also one-third of the ungainly named Maggotapplewonderland (aided and abetted by two other gents manning various guitars), working well outside classic EM boundaries where electric bass guitars and electric baritone guitars speak their minds as expressively as their electronic counterparts. “Terminal Unfolding” features synths folded and creased into the oft-menacing architecture fomented by A. Jones and R. Shapton’s string-driven thingies, signatures recognizable but harried on by the pulsing circuitries surrounding them. “A Fragile Truce” commences with some tentative synth sprinkles from Peck, but the guitarists’ quick response, teasing electricity, plangent chords shapeshifting and intensifying the atmosphere, reveals an industrial-strength stew of a stripe seldom devised by post-Berlin School alum. Vivid and cinematic, with a sense of reckless endangerment situating the music right at the abyssal edge. <span style="font-weight:bold;">DARREN BERGSTEIN</span> • <a href="http://limitedwave.com/subterraneous">http://limitedwave.com/subterraneous</a> / <a href="http://www.maggotapplewonderland.com">www.maggotapplewonderland.com</a><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjcK5qFn3u-TAFTRzZ9mROPUbiWtidfCtJ0rdgsm8mQGHCWPYVrQXDfxaGEYl4qeuYv1PXnGMTdbm1PKX9NHQiG-X4c4aauq2dgG1TMphdTrIFhgkcTkvG_u9nc3c2cwnipmBQAvMXYQ_0/s1600-h/mwc.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 200px; height: 196px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjcK5qFn3u-TAFTRzZ9mROPUbiWtidfCtJ0rdgsm8mQGHCWPYVrQXDfxaGEYl4qeuYv1PXnGMTdbm1PKX9NHQiG-X4c4aauq2dgG1TMphdTrIFhgkcTkvG_u9nc3c2cwnipmBQAvMXYQ_0/s200/mwc.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5281372119616655314" /></a>Moon Wiring Club work in a recently minted subgenre of distinctly British electronica dubbed hauntology, wherein everything from triphoppy rhythms to dessicated beatscapes are entwined within snatches of radio broadcasts, vocals ripped from the netherworld, and the types of warped, unique sounds pioneered by the likes of the BBC Radiophonic Workshop. More tellingly, hauntology-related artists bring a definitive air of Anglo whimsy on board as well, often suffused with voice samples from arcane cinema and buttressed by an indigenous “folky” aesthetic that could include archly rural musics as well as seminal early 90s post-techno electronica recalibrations. The Club flirt with all the above in spades, enshrouding their magical moonbeams over 22 tracks that read like a public library catalog of the peculiar and sonically twisted. Pieces like “Wandering Bishop” harness a decrepit inner-city riddim (shades of Mo’Wax and their ilk) to spirits talking amidst gibbering synths, but simply plucking out individual pieces for evaluation is a fool’s gesture. What the Club does so effectively is provide a glimpse into the mind of exhausted madmen steeped in British art history looking to mussy it up by any means necessary. If buggy ambient connotes that “The Crystal Set Begins to Function” in Richard D. James flat, so be it; the Club seem able to hold up any electronic genre puffed out in Britain over the last 40 years and refract it through a funhouse mirror. What pops out is at turns puzzling, ominous, curious, unsettling—the ear merely transforms these delectable sonic oddities into semisweet morsels begging for the taking and swallows ‘em down, whole. <span style="font-weight:bold;">DARREN BERGSTEIN</span> • <a href="http://www.blankworkshop.co.uk">www.blankworkshop.co.uk</a><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgA-EpsyrTM8g2zXxBFdx1ij5_wZ1nokKHmfEQ-5gZuRp6rsRqbd-ZFa00q5zKSrzjGHvQhQYKv8SZLyazR3LRq5Uun-Kn9LkmN5tlH5vXP46ZvC5Z3vLmonShSDgNNeQBRvUzhlMN_yvY/s1600-h/roedelius.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 200px; height: 200px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgA-EpsyrTM8g2zXxBFdx1ij5_wZ1nokKHmfEQ-5gZuRp6rsRqbd-ZFa00q5zKSrzjGHvQhQYKv8SZLyazR3LRq5Uun-Kn9LkmN5tlH5vXP46ZvC5Z3vLmonShSDgNNeQBRvUzhlMN_yvY/s200/roedelius.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5281371976750331890" /></a>New to the world of Hans-Joachim Roedelius? <span style="font-style:italic;">Back Soon</span> is a handy primer of his more recent work, tracking pieces from the early 90s right up to previews from forthcoming releases (and one previously unreleased track, the brilliant post-Cluster luminosity that is “I Enigma”). So what you get is a cross-section of the, yes, enigmatic Roedelius, containing smatterings of his somewhat less compelling but still commanding piano-based works along with the electronic gimcrackery he’s built his four decades-plus career on. Roedelius’s love of the piano underpins all fourteen tracks here, regardless of whether they draped in electronic ornamentation or not; the man’s art remains consistently inventive and eclectic, working everything from Asian motifs (“Poetry”) to quivering downtempo electronica (“Something Happened Here”) into his amazingly varied template. Keyboard prowess aside, I’ve always been partial to his indulging the more awry, experimental tensions central to his muse; the pieces here culled from unabashedly acoustic, piano-centric albums such as 1993’s <span style="font-style:italic;">Tace!</span> and 92’s <span style="font-style:italic;">Romance in the Wilderness</span> display Roedelius’s lightness of touch and command of dramatic beauty, but deeply personal reflections notwithstanding, it’s when he jacks deep into his imagination that the fireworks truly erupt. “B In Utero (Love Came)” still brings his trusty grand into the matrix but it’s offset by deft electronic touches and fleet rhythms that are anything but business as usual. The truth is that no one collection can be truly representative of Roedelius’s unassailable body of work, but Back Soon certainly gives it the old college try, and is an adequate place for the novice to start. <span style="font-weight:bold;">DARREN BERGSTEIN</span> • <a href="http://www.barkinggreen.com">www.barkinggreen.com</a><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgXogxk6xSEO31bJWHzxJu73Dxfx7M2m9LzF0zeqK9jVRz71Bg_Ci4MA1W95f0XJkw5RFDVpCS-GIu1-Ei7GawvqTJR0bd3gaLhRe9pcndxWDsztPd_i1CiaMAmqchyRiTMTVelneg5sF0/s1600-h/vataff.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 200px; height: 164px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgXogxk6xSEO31bJWHzxJu73Dxfx7M2m9LzF0zeqK9jVRz71Bg_Ci4MA1W95f0XJkw5RFDVpCS-GIu1-Ei7GawvqTJR0bd3gaLhRe9pcndxWDsztPd_i1CiaMAmqchyRiTMTVelneg5sF0/s200/vataff.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5281372227091646610" /></a>The other recent Aleph Zero joint is by Bulgarian musician Victor Marinov, who resists pigeonholing as much as Hibernation, bending distaff sounds and genre like elastic bands honed from mercury. As Vataff Project, Marinov joins an elite group of musicians carving impossibly dense musics from a seemingly limitless palette of texture and rhythm. Incorporating instruments (samples?) of his native land into his exotic beat pharmaceuticals (such as the snakecharmer flutes that skirt across the smoky atmospheres and gelatin squelches of “Orpheus Forest”) infers that Marinov paints <span style="font-style:italic;">Kalitz</span> as a veritable travelogue of ideas and images far-flung, ancient, and techno-graphical. In this regard, the record’s success hinges on some broad aesthetic shoulders, but Marinov pulls it off with marvelous aplomb. Orbian philosophies encumbering interspatial dynamics and chocolate-thick beats shore up the ghost shimmers of “Inner Beauty”; “Patayasa” is a glimpse into Marinov’s sonic arboretum, bird-song morphing and twisting into an ornithologic glitchery of rainforest trills and rhythms arising from some very humid freezones; “Utc”, like most of the previous tracks before it, refines the artist’s finely-etched organica thanks to buckets of glurpy synth, fizzy contrails and Raster Noton patterning. Note as well the immaculate, gorgeous widescreen production throughout that resolves every sound on <span style="font-style:italic;">Kalitz</span> in picturesque high definition. Forget moribund poseurs like Banco de Gaia—it’s now Vataff Project’s green machine that sports the brightest sheen. <span style="font-weight:bold;">DARREN BERGSTEIN</span> • <a href="http://www.aleph-zero.info">www.aleph-zero.info</a>Darren Bergstein (Editor/Publisher)http://www.blogger.com/profile/03979361482585766858noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4680931152558950057.post-16094128707076527182008-12-10T11:04:00.021-05:002008-12-10T11:38:51.297-05:00Installment 25<span style="font-weight:bold;">BEEHATCH Beehatch (Lens)<br />LOREN CHASSE & MICHAEL NORTHAM The Otolith (Helen Scarsdale)<br />CISFINITUM Tactio (Mechanoise Labs)<br />RICHARD GARET L'avinir (Winds Measure)<br />RAPOON The Library of the Dead (Ewers Tonkunst)<br />RAPOON Obscure Objects of Desire (Vivo)<br />VARIOUS Listen (Duckbay)<br />WENDT Unreleased Music For Visualizers (Miatera</span>) <br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEguIGUBjdcprBfo7T2j9M5obmr_6unQm_9IyNKWyDkZidk4weGK7xdv4DmlOG1OM_aAkI05CZQP5dmzS7q_6LWEBQ3LPbaQP1GOQ6AO5eOesqIyyqBjfbac8-Hlakx9gd1O18cdsHcwxoA/s1600-h/beehatch.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 199px; height: 200px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEguIGUBjdcprBfo7T2j9M5obmr_6unQm_9IyNKWyDkZidk4weGK7xdv4DmlOG1OM_aAkI05CZQP5dmzS7q_6LWEBQ3LPbaQP1GOQ6AO5eOesqIyyqBjfbac8-Hlakx9gd1O18cdsHcwxoA/s200/beehatch.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5278198128052031650" /></a>Unless you’ve shuffled off to Mars these last decades, the backgrounds of Phil Western and Mark Spybey, who make-up Beehatch, should engender instant, if not total, recall. Spybey goes way back to the influential Zoviet France, and has made many a name for himself recording as Propeller, Dead Voices on Air, and as a member of Reformed Faction (a Zoviet France reincarnation/reinterpretation) and Skinny Puppy IDM offshoot Download. Western not only also figures in Download, but has diligently pursued a career crisscrossing more hybrid electronic musics than you can shake a synth at, his productions boasting tenure in ambient techno (Floatpoint), lush psychedelic trance (Off and Gone), post-industrial IDM (Plateau), and outré limits (Frozen Rabbit); his solo album <span style="font-style:italic;">World’s End</span> ain’t chopped liver either, portraying the artist as an itinerant free radical bisecting genre with the greatest of ease. Both bring all this expertise to bear on their Beehatch debut, a wild wild west of mental mood machines, surreal byte-play and software run joyously amok. Like its namesake, the record commences with a buzzing malevolence, soon mixed into the sinister groove careering of “Facing Up to the Facts,” which recalls Wire bassist Graham Lewis’ similar techno perversities as He Said. In fact, Western and Spybey pepper a few more song-based pieces amongst the overall instrumental politic (the vocals often well-processed so they become simply another sonic piece of the puzzle) to dynamic effect. But Beehatch upsets the apple cart in more ways than one, carving up all manners of genre into audiomulch: from the strange somber environs of “Tis” and dark-hued, Aphex Twinned drill ‘n’ bass of “Warm and Fuzzy”, to the 70s synth sparkle of “Something Too” and tainted love electro-stylings of “I See Your Light Dying”, Beehatch music takes what it wants from electronica’s storied history and jettisons the rest, leaving the sticky-sweet residue for us to hungrily lap up. <span style="font-weight:bold;">DARREN BERGSTEIN</span> • <a href="http://www.lensrecords.com">www.lensrecords.com</a><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhhux5yDEwp9E-8nDzsHv3FEL8cMN6Cb0TtIYmqQnFygrmDoPzFzPe6Pk5FPdEirAGXmE4WB3BO5-AKZ80qAOBIYedZK9KBU2ln9yZfY1RxqvL3zyLHr5W80PfmKVeGX50RkcJQmp2zLII/s1600-h/otolith.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 200px; height: 200px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhhux5yDEwp9E-8nDzsHv3FEL8cMN6Cb0TtIYmqQnFygrmDoPzFzPe6Pk5FPdEirAGXmE4WB3BO5-AKZ80qAOBIYedZK9KBU2ln9yZfY1RxqvL3zyLHr5W80PfmKVeGX50RkcJQmp2zLII/s200/otolith.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5278196212456977394" /></a>On <span style="font-style:italic;">The Otolith</span>, surreal imagery shares lyrical roomspace with the ebb and flow of ruffled sounds stolen from countless trails traversed between 2003 and 2006. Michael Northam's nomadic lifestyle has figured in his recordings for some time now—here remnants of his time in Estonia, Battery Townsley, Epesses, Gorge de Veveyse de Fegire, and Bruxelles are displayed prominently. Loren Chasse, on the other hand, plays the oud, autoharp, bowed wires, harmonium, bells and gongs. As the album opens up both play to their respective strengths while now and again making fleeting forays into each others dimensions. It begins with a dust-dry ambient buzz that slowly increases in volume and intensity on “The Broken House”, looping and spinning around itself to form a cobwebbed tunnel of abstract cacophony. “Spinning Cloth” throws the proceedings back into a richly textured fug of javelin rain and the whirring of electronic wasp wings. Henceforth the disc wends through enough detours to retain its primal sense of otherness, while always remaining delicately balanced, abstract and austere. A ghostly snatch of field recordings grow gritty and cluttered on certain works, spread out and fuse into a variety of shifting hums and drones on others, or else stand out as crackles of sonic percussion in relatively sleek, seductive, and moderately unstable arrangements. The duo remains forever faithful to a calmness of spirit, and accordingly the changes that arise are never especially bold, but spontaneity and meaningful dialogue are always held high. A sustained structural tension is held between these two husks, resulting in a wealth of tiny incidents that slowly draw in the listener's environment. In a manner not dissimilar to some of Tarkovsky's films, these tenuous pieces bore a hole directly in the atmosphere. <span style="font-weight:bold;">MAX SCHAEFER</span> • <a href="http://www.helenscarsdale.com">www.helenscarsdale.com</a><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjzb1yqV7hyphenhyphenYJ2dYVqpjLIKSLWSG1YPwhUd6wSLPF3Qj5epnHFvN1-0KJFg7-VS-ZEV22qK8MQhLIama_Uvi0KjrCv5b1SWrcWFgKgspi-D00DCXItnl9tNz3a6Kbq9YdXbwtfLx-2PqCc/s1600-h/R-1263940-1204745785.jpeg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 200px; height: 178px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjzb1yqV7hyphenhyphenYJ2dYVqpjLIKSLWSG1YPwhUd6wSLPF3Qj5epnHFvN1-0KJFg7-VS-ZEV22qK8MQhLIama_Uvi0KjrCv5b1SWrcWFgKgspi-D00DCXItnl9tNz3a6Kbq9YdXbwtfLx-2PqCc/s200/R-1263940-1204745785.jpeg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5278198759499639282" /></a>Cisfinitum is Russian soundscraper Evgeny Voronovsky, a man whose name doesn’t exactly get antenna vibrating, but his original, multi-level approach to environment-crafting damn well should. He’s released only a handful of recordings, utilizing all available media at his disposal (CDs, CDRs, MP3 files) to empower his sturdy sonic evolutions; 2007’s collaboration with Rapoon surely raised his cred significantly, but <span style="font-style:italic;">Tactio</span> is the one that ought to raise the shackles of the yearning masses. Recorded live in an ancient Roman cathedral where Voronovsky incorporated the space’s natural acoustics and spatial dynamics in his compositions, <span style="font-style:italic;">Tactio</span> absorbs the penitent aura of its surroundings, its seven movements a grand display of hushed awe and reverberant mysticism. Clanging bells are blended into coarse, stark textures, their infinite decay left to drift and merge into a series of long, time-slowed drones. Occasionally, strange elements are woven into and out of the mix—a blush of gnarled noise, rolling waves, rhythmic poltergeists—that only serve to heighten an already tense atmosphere on the verge of collapse. On the fifth segment, looped, cascading bells return to signal in a new march of activity colored by the tangs of precious metals and small cyclones threatening to rip the sonic veneer to shreds. Voronovsky eventually coaxes some leathery percussive loops out of his holy mainframe, using them to bring the hissing mantras of the closing sixth movement to an exhausted conclusion. As the tumultuous events gradually wind down, all that’s left is the cathedral’s natural ambiance embracing both satisfied audience and Voronovsky’s spent electronics, the pillars of heaven having been thoroughly shaken and stirred. <span style="font-weight:bold;">DARREN BERGSTEIN</span> • <a href="http://www.mechanoise-labs.com">www.mechanoise-labs.com</a> <br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhu8-x2rqtYB3jtCUcfh-Mqoi7KaaOC_NXqYt5KLVtrRrWTY8saU4a-D8QX3375ygAHPnVQhk1yfPhsC_QymQ02TUFUYxkachoFOhfDYQDeEQsCL4IduljbhKftKPQc9fY8BzUxFzrp2is/s1600-h/garet.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 200px; height: 186px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhu8-x2rqtYB3jtCUcfh-Mqoi7KaaOC_NXqYt5KLVtrRrWTY8saU4a-D8QX3375ygAHPnVQhk1yfPhsC_QymQ02TUFUYxkachoFOhfDYQDeEQsCL4IduljbhKftKPQc9fY8BzUxFzrp2is/s200/garet.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5278195957712583106" /></a>This audio-document from Richard Garet is based on an elegantly simple formula: that which is “to come” arrives, unexpectedly yet with surprising ease, from a source outside history, and in so doing interrupts the continuity of things. It's a formulation propounded by the late Jacques Derrida, which Garet resurrects through a set whose dimly-lit unstable nature maintains a sense of wonder and majesty while simultaneously being structurally refined, like an architectural plan, such that the transitions seem born of an inner musical necessity. Despite its ostensible suspension, the opening passage of pointillism also comes across as an uneasy particle mass, which beats as it sweeps, like dizzy honey bees in a bucket of tar. It slowly and painfully gives into a midsection in which things grow more episodic. Spindly electronic tones and incidental sounds swirl like dandelion tufts in an alien space, cosy and creepy at once. The subtle technician in Garet then looms up again as he steadily lets the surge subside with attentiveness and feeling. Following these ear-catching moments, in a ironic manner, an album built around unpredictability ends with some rather standard electronic grit and granular fluttering. It all sounds carefully and cleverly thought through, without excluding spontaneity. <span style="font-weight:bold;">MAX SCHAEFER</span> • <a href="http://www.windsmeasurerecordings.net">www.windsmeasurerecordings.net</a><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjpdsbYNH4J0p00E3tLThKsSuB1wjFvLAlOz6fTYSLpFwhPv2pG8jczZn8WnKuoqFOKoneER8CHeE7s_gHzfJ0UreLSMOEsVrMDYqkBUoDLZV4bN0aB_TGaOCGRgwFSu0ndeGJj5IrAE08/s1600-h/library-cover-opti.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 200px; height: 180px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjpdsbYNH4J0p00E3tLThKsSuB1wjFvLAlOz6fTYSLpFwhPv2pG8jczZn8WnKuoqFOKoneER8CHeE7s_gHzfJ0UreLSMOEsVrMDYqkBUoDLZV4bN0aB_TGaOCGRgwFSu0ndeGJj5IrAE08/s200/library-cover-opti.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5278195080781686530" /></a>The always prolific Robin Storey returns with two more Rapoon outings that tangentially veer off from his well-established template. Over the course of his long, post-Zoviet France career, his is a chameleonic talent, one responsible for erecting a network of tribal linguistics and loop ideologies that remain utterly original in their sound design and yet, like the equally tenacious shark, constantly move forward to ensure their longevity. Both of these recordings shore up such an approach.<span style="font-style:italic;"> The Library of the Dead</span> on first listen appears to be a slighter work in the Rapoon oeuvre, but repeated exposures reveal fortunes favoring the puckish. Central to this recording are the vocals of Russian singer Tatyana Stepchenko, who recorded songs for Storey <span style="font-style:italic;">a capella</span> for him to slice, dice, and rearrange at will. Her wordless gesticulations fall somewhere between Lisa Gerrard and Alquimia, and by orbiting his eddying constructs around her, Storey wisely builds upon the ecclesiastical tenor she so richly evokes. Cycled into a typical Rapoon fabric of gorgeous, spiraling loops, the result lacks the more knotty ritualistic energy of older works like <span style="font-style:italic;">Easterly 6 or 7</span>, but still packs numerous surprises such as the ever-swelling “Rising”, its electronic repudiation of orchestral bombast suggesting an (un)holy merger of Gas and Arvo Pärt. <a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEie2e7tpvfQR3pIBM_Y7FgYnBW8lmdSkKLYuSgur6BzfzwCvT4RxcToL_H1LBGy6JuhMelu_uA3fzz90JZbWeREscfM-flHI9BJldkeI74p3G_HFSxKUa4ZGppnD4bK9kfeRaOmmD-fw2E/s1600-h/rapoon_objects_front.jpg"><img style="float:right; margin:0 0 10px 10px;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 200px; height: 171px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEie2e7tpvfQR3pIBM_Y7FgYnBW8lmdSkKLYuSgur6BzfzwCvT4RxcToL_H1LBGy6JuhMelu_uA3fzz90JZbWeREscfM-flHI9BJldkeI74p3G_HFSxKUa4ZGppnD4bK9kfeRaOmmD-fw2E/s200/rapoon_objects_front.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5278195390238595506" /></a>On <span style="font-style:italic;">Obscure Objects of Desire</span>, recorded for the Polish label Vivo, Rapoon takes the gloves off, overdriving his amplifiers, capturing the friction and sculpting it into large blocks of nucleonic fuzz. “The Emptiness of Institutions” does indeed promote a caustic sort of isolationism, the chants of ancient monks lost in clouds of radioactive spittle. “As Close As Possible” utilizes a phantasmagorical mélange of alien choirs and splintered sounds, the closest in form that Storey’s been to his old allies Zoviet France in years. “The Emptiness of Art” reeks of portentousness, and proudly so: strangulated violins arch over blasted landscapes that echo noises flanged beyond recognition, through which curious incidental electronic fluctuations scamper and curdle. Not wholly dissimilar to mid-90s Rapoon, yet there’s more going on than meets the ear—tweaking his tried and true formula ensures that both of these exploratory works refuse to simply tell the same old Storey. <span style="font-weight:bold;">DARREN BERGSTEIN</span> • <a href="http://www.the-edge.ws/pretentious/rapoon">www.the-edge.ws/pretentious/rapoon</a> / <a href="http://www.vivo.pl">www.vivo.pl</a><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiFdjbVGSP_gobXBydmmSwcC9NVBcac49CvAAMjvuPUHYtyO4MkoktyxzpeQP7qUrKPNFr9O35NbtNMPN-eCKoQvqG-HZnTNpYGZIkiSA3oG6OEGEUQOeAGmf2_C78jHNKWm_oYnbC6clk/s1600-h/duckbay.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 199px; height: 200px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiFdjbVGSP_gobXBydmmSwcC9NVBcac49CvAAMjvuPUHYtyO4MkoktyxzpeQP7qUrKPNFr9O35NbtNMPN-eCKoQvqG-HZnTNpYGZIkiSA3oG6OEGEUQOeAGmf2_C78jHNKWm_oYnbC6clk/s200/duckbay.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5278194617069650114" /></a>Packaged in a petite, gray-cardboard, letter-pressed sleeve, the Duckbay label’s aptly titled <span style="font-style:italic;">Listen</span> has come out of nowhere to announce itself, quietly, unceremoniously (much like the sounds within), as one of the finest collections of esoteric ambience to hit the racks this year. Serene soundscapes, scabrous drones, transitory pulsewidths, staunch digital minimalism…it’s all here, awaiting one’s immersion into its beckoning, warm bath. There’s nary a duff track in the bunch: label honcho and compiler Jordan Sauer’s hit one right out of the park on his first at-bat, corralling together the crème de la crème of the worthy unknown, the brash upstart, the clandestine operator. Sauer might not force you to, well, listen intently to these myriad works (it’s not the kind of music associated with strongwilled persuasion); the sounds are potent enough to speak for themselves. “U.Me,” by IJO, wraps you in a warm, fuzzy gauze of discarded digital detritus and solipsistic electrostatic crackle, the listener watching in abject resignation as his bedroom disintegrates around him. For Elian, “The Feeling Has Passed Me By” manages to conjure up great longing, illustrated by a particularly edgey piece of dronemeal that resembles rivulets of acid rain splattering on pavement. Son of Rose makes music that pops in and out of focus like the flickerframes of antique projectors on “Flocksandflocks”, a pinging chorale of disc-error loops volleying across oscillating chimes. Entia Non reveals the noises curdling out of abandoned tunnels dug by pernicious insects on “Silt”, while Chubby Wolf (the female half of atmospheric wunderkind Celer) makes the oxygen absorbed by macrobiotic flora and fauna expand, contract and resonate throughout the fibrous contrails of “A Wispy Tear.” As the finale, Ryonkt’s Basinski-meets-Budd smeared pianoscape “Circulation”, unspools dreamily into the room as December gunmetal skies engulf a dim orangey sunset outside my window, I can’t think of a more serendipitous way for such a hugely engrossing <span style="font-style:italic;">Listen</span> to conclude. <span style="font-weight:bold;">DARREN BERGSTEIN</span> • <a href="http://www.duckbay.net">www.duckbay.net</a> <br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEijPT69qsldQXDaB9SsHQQ31N-vGs2fE1PzccsI8OP6Hl9QS19J06zAzbz_392ENt_8NF3FH7QVyHeQuLGpW_Fh-CNLWLDB0RUL19mENw2pPkkMUja8DfhSFjhlTggtjcE9CcMKTODjIvk/s1600-h/wendt.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 200px; height: 200px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEijPT69qsldQXDaB9SsHQQ31N-vGs2fE1PzccsI8OP6Hl9QS19J06zAzbz_392ENt_8NF3FH7QVyHeQuLGpW_Fh-CNLWLDB0RUL19mENw2pPkkMUja8DfhSFjhlTggtjcE9CcMKTODjIvk/s200/wendt.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5278198245683839874" /></a>Alexander Wendt has created a standout piece of sound architecture, setting out with “Confluence of Indus and Zaskar: Part One” in a grimly figurative mechanistic vein, before giving onto a gradual, overawning array of treatments and concrete effects that accrue with unsentimental inevitability, ultimately descending into slow collapse and tiny sussurations coarsing through the ash. The structures throughout are fairly simple, but there's ample pleasure in the sounds themselves. “Lot”, for one, is like a sped-up calliope plowing into a snowdrift of filters and dub delay, while a tinselly glimmer of stacked arpeggios germinates in the soil of “Not”, and “Sun” unravels like a frayed-wire flareup. “Hub” is the most aggressive track, built from speaker-humping sub bass and a white hot pattern of bit-crush and beat-repeat. Whether whipping up these uncanny shapes, tumbling into a gravity-free bounce or settling into relatively easygoing little fugue’s marked by an implacable harmonic curiosity, there's an inscrutable determinism to all these pieces. Works are immaculately assembled insofar as there is a certain motorik drive and mathematical discipline in the intervals. So too in the fact that, owing to this strict determination, the odd ectoplasmic bass synth waver or stream of shivering dissonance stands out like a glob of ink spurt across a school exercise book. The contrast is sharpest in the early works, where, trapped in a tube, a binary bickering unfolds against a dark digital weir. In later works, the contrast proves effective in still different ways, the digital blinking amid a placenta of precisely calibrated fuzz making for a beguiling mixture of the more conventional and the unearthly. Wendt begins with an acquired fortune (hand-me-downs from Raster-Noton and the like), but in the duration and management of these works he gathers together and poises himself to hurtle beyond these limits and establish something less constricted and more kinetic. <span style="font-weight:bold;">MAX SCHAEFER</span> • <a href="http://www.12x50.com">www.12x50.com</a>Darren Bergstein (Editor/Publisher)http://www.blogger.com/profile/03979361482585766858noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4680931152558950057.post-32270159606189481022008-12-02T16:14:00.031-05:002008-12-03T00:49:55.554-05:00Installment 24<span style="font-weight:bold;">RUDY ADRIAN Desert Realms (Lotuspike)<br />JOHAN AGEBJÖRN Mossebo (Lotuspike)<br />DARSHAN AMBIENT From Pale Hands to Weary Skies (Lotuspike)<br />CRAIG PADILLA Below the Mountain (Spotted Peccary)</span><br /><br />Here indeed are an eclectic bunch from the Spotted Peccary family of labels, of which Lotuspike is now a “member”. No monstrously dramatic changes have taken place because of this "merger", except perhaps to broaden Spotted Peccary’s outreach; if anything, the label is now poised, along with Hypnos, to become a central operation along the loci of ambient/atmospheric music.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjVPFwHRvCn3tlKPOHtH3WMXi_3z54VmSTjTozexpSOxsLtD3ecUb1JRHlpHYrusT1Iu4gst_0iTEiyGJaInqsUPKXK5sBM6T7nUsbJ0Ac-Pw8-5eNS0yQP8DxmTRNgI0ZInogHz1mhuNk/s1600-h/adrian.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 200px; height: 200px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjVPFwHRvCn3tlKPOHtH3WMXi_3z54VmSTjTozexpSOxsLtD3ecUb1JRHlpHYrusT1Iu4gst_0iTEiyGJaInqsUPKXK5sBM6T7nUsbJ0Ac-Pw8-5eNS0yQP8DxmTRNgI0ZInogHz1mhuNk/s200/adrian.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5275305369629872210" /></a>New Zealander Rudy Adrian has quietly amassed a respectable back catalog over the years, mostly for the Netherlands EM label Groove Unlimited, caressing a wide range of styles, from the aforementioned ambience of his earlier Lotuspike release <span style="font-style:italic;">Moonwater</span> to the more rhythmically buoyant, sequencer-intensive calculations found on <span style="font-style:italic;">Kinetic Flow</span> and <span style="font-style:italic;">Starfields</span>. Many an electronic musician has found inspiration in landscape, going as far back as Eno with his benchmark <span style="font-style:italic;">On Land </span>(amongst numerous others). <span style="font-style:italic;">Desert Realms</span> apparently stoked Adrian’s muse from his touring in 2002 of Utah’s otherworldly terrain, a land of stark, epoch-scored vistas, incorporeal climes and steep grades. Tracks such as the opening “Saguaro Silhoutte”, with its wordless chants and upwardly spiralling drones, and the shifting dusky synth reverie of “Fading Light” are well-wrought, impressionist fantasies that manage to succeed independent of their earthen analogs. Being a longtime enthusiast of Adrian’s work, there’s little doubt that he’s a composer and synthesist of significant charge, yet, as satisfying as <span style="font-style:italic;">Desert Realms</span> is, I’m not convinced that the grand landscapes he seeks to evoke are mirrored in the final constructs. Regardless, there’s some quality work here: “Subterranean River” benefits from a blur of bells and shimmery percussive accents smeared into a widening maw of synth; “Of Clouds and Mountains” feels like water vapor coalescing gently in a chilly morning sunrise, similar to Thom Brennan’s opalescent tone poems; “Rocks Under Midnight” likewise allows delicately rubbed electronics to vibrate and pulse throughout its many diaphanous layers. Conceptual illustrations aside, Adrian remains a composer of no small measure—coaxed from a minimal array of soundmakers, <span style="font-style:italic;">Desert Realms</span> is a laudable work of abject beauty.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh9lm_GjGcJYYW62OJPX5kTDPdTVMtp-qtW-Tk_LTh_cfHDOiQrI3LsTeKbuKaEY0azh6MZbnOwV0MfPNnFpfFjytX5XJviYWz7mL0MlyAPLvl_uKSpBxeO1KVj_po23BsJTaBlE1OeqGs/s1600-h/johan.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 200px; height: 200px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh9lm_GjGcJYYW62OJPX5kTDPdTVMtp-qtW-Tk_LTh_cfHDOiQrI3LsTeKbuKaEY0azh6MZbnOwV0MfPNnFpfFjytX5XJviYWz7mL0MlyAPLvl_uKSpBxeO1KVj_po23BsJTaBlE1OeqGs/s200/johan.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5275305723997770882" /></a>Who is Johan Agebjörn and where has he been all this time? Though probably a new name to most, his bio on Discogs.com (and his website) shows him treading in quite divergent streams, creating piano-based compositions in addition to Italo-disco under his Sally Shapiro alias. All over the stylistic map it might be, but <span style="font-style:italic;">Mossebo</span> blew me back—totally engaging, lithe in execution and elegantly produced, its luxurious ear candy handily updates the early 90s heyday of Euro ambient techno. Agebjörn’s influences run a wide gamut: he himself notes the ballast of Autechre on “Ambient Computer Dance” (the <span style="font-style:italic;">Incunabula</span> era), and Lisa Barra’s wordless (and sometimes wordful) vocals recall that other Lisa-nicked chanteuse, Gerrard. (Elements of Erik Wøllo and Candice Pacheco pop up as well.) Barra’s baleful coos and energized whispers play all kinds of acrobatic games across Agebjörn’s rhythm tracks, trading their hypertexts with arctic synths, the odd piano, and even themselves, Agebjörn admitting a fondness for vocoders and chopped-up voice edits. All due respect given to the Delerium boys and any Enigma worshippers/wannabes out there, but here’s sultry techno-trance done right. The opening “Dulciter Somni” makes a good argument against such ultra-polished digital faux “world” music, Agebjörn setting up a fairly simple drum machine riff over which Barra swoops and swoons amongst pink-purplish electronic flotsam. One of <span style="font-style:italic;">Mossebo</span>’s particularly notable graces is that its richly-detailed fabric comfits a largely uncluttered music: Agebjörn no doubt clings to the less-is-more school and milks that credo for all its worth. Thus “The Sound of Snowflakes Touching the Ground” appears quite enamored of its pristine subzero minimalism, pitter-pattering beats skating below Barra’s cries as if on a thin icepatch, and the two-part “Siberian Train” actually feels more epic than it is, Agebjörn’s locomotive programming and delineated synths reminiscent of Tangerine Dream’s classic “Madrigal Meridian”, or even a distantly-engineered cousin to their own “Love On A Real Train.” In any case, <span style="font-style:italic;">Mossebo</span> is like some brilliant bolt out of the blue, unexpected, surprising, ever-rejuvenating—built for the future, Johan?<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiwFeRMzxhOCoQwib0CE-WuAGiKIdTM-3R2MuK0ZIDGdWBuXHzamT8ubEeKrmNJ1MuWHalQfw0fV4A_wDeJ0lZTQM6SDcMIyrgmL-Y9VOK87a7In5Qn_l0BjtDqzmRZJYkuOnedLMz6Ww4/s1600-h/darshan.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 200px; height: 200px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiwFeRMzxhOCoQwib0CE-WuAGiKIdTM-3R2MuK0ZIDGdWBuXHzamT8ubEeKrmNJ1MuWHalQfw0fV4A_wDeJ0lZTQM6SDcMIyrgmL-Y9VOK87a7In5Qn_l0BjtDqzmRZJYkuOnedLMz6Ww4/s200/darshan.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5275305864307247698" /></a>Michael Allison, aka Darshan Ambient, considers From <span style="font-style:italic;">Pale Hands to Weary Skies</span> his best work yet, and, despite a career that’s still in its infancy, with creative moxie to burn, a convincing argument could be made that his assessment might well be true. Conceived while Allison was in the throes of a life-threatening illness, he subsequently mined the final result during his lengthy convalescence, and once your ears have drunk deep of this remarkable offering, you’d reckon that his near-death experience virtually electroshocked both his muse and psyche. It certainly shows in the energized spirit of the music; much of this new recording marries a more overt rhythmic sensibility to the usual Darshan Ambient post-Eno template, but Allison’s music has always been about more than pat categorical metaphors. Erected with nimble hand and equally imaginative finesse, his is a voice unique in worldwide “ambient” music due to his gift for melody and an emotional instrumental range that never sacrifices vibrancy for passive new-age sentimentality. “The Furniture of Time” leads thing off in fine fashion, Allison playing an absolutely charming piano motif atop squeaking electronics and a tousled rhythmic counterpoint of tablas and ticktock soft-synth beats, assuming one of those naggingly insistent melodies that stick in your head forever. The pealing twangs of “The Look of Amber” suggest the contemplative ideals of Patrick O’Hearn in their late afternoon simplicity, all lower-key chords and alabaster moods. “Palace of the Windowed Rocks,” with its fleet percussive line, electronics that snap to and fro like weathered rubberbands (replete with irising space whispers) and subtle piano phrasing, is one of the more sumptuous pieces of melancholic ambience to come down the pike this year. Allison’s getting better all the time—physically and artistically—his sonic alter ego proffering the perfect sonic balm for all concerned.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhIzvOSIl8dVYHvq6Kxe7Phoc_M6NfqMgxZghKpu-uw7fl2iR3EqSGuCzCll10MKZIV81myE2lnU0vPeF8BNJOr-QKfA_EKogIo8VPAqk2T74uQ3ZmnQNmKXtS57YCXGob1X7hr8_oCCZM/s1600-h/BelowTheMountain+image.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 200px; height: 200px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhIzvOSIl8dVYHvq6Kxe7Phoc_M6NfqMgxZghKpu-uw7fl2iR3EqSGuCzCll10MKZIV81myE2lnU0vPeF8BNJOr-QKfA_EKogIo8VPAqk2T74uQ3ZmnQNmKXtS57YCXGob1X7hr8_oCCZM/s200/BelowTheMountain+image.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5275318819574721346" /></a>And now for something completely (relatively speaking) different. Craig Padilla’s name deserves more than just a passing nod amongst post-Berlin school aficionados. He’s released some superb space music and sequencer-driven works over the years, both solo and in collaboration with fellow sonic auteur Skip Murphy, and, more importantly, swept aside the usual Teutonic affectations in an effort to spin off from those hoary, 35-plus year old battleaxes. Yes, the vocabulary’s recognizable, but the syntax has been tweaked: the music on <span style="font-style:italic;">Below the Mountain</span> (the inspiration of which comes again from landscape, specifically Padilla’s home around Mt. Shasta in Northern California) suggests rugged earthly embraces except that its palette harkens more towards the quantum mechanics of interstellar pioneers Tangerine Dream and Schulze. All irrelevant anyway—beguiling moments await within. Immediately appealing and subtly clever, the opening “Current” benefits from a little elfin countenance of a synth figure that invigorates the ever-shifting expanses made by well-oiled, well-tendered yet soft machines. Like a boomerang, “Woven Planet” tugs at your memory cards as it recalls the classic moments of TD’s <span style="font-style:italic;">Ricochet</span>, gurgling sequencers rippling under bulging updrafts of graysky electronics. Padilla is able to achieve a near perfect balance of sci-fi futurism and landscape veneer: the ten minutes of “Windspell” see a return to slow tempo sequencer and chugging, <span style="font-style:italic;">Exit</span>-like cymbal acrobatics as Padilla folds his mosaic of rhythms into thick clouds of majestic, undulating chords, 70s déjà vu all over again but brushed over with 00s gloss. The closing 22-plus minutes of “Alturas” is the real barnstormer, however, Padilla coaxing various skeins of star-twinkle, metallic dewdrops, blossoming backdrift, and, ultimately, a corkscrewing, hypnotizing sequencer pattern whose complex tangles burrow right into your cochlea. Padilla’s scored some major hits in the past, but this particular slice of systems music’s a real humdinger; it simultaneously fades back and radiates. <span style="font-weight:bold;">DARREN BERGSTEIN</span> • <a href="http://www.lotuspike.com">www.lotuspike.com</a> / <a href="http://www.spottedpeccary.com">www.spottedpeccary.com</a><br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">BVDUB Return to Tonglu (Quietus)<br />CIVYIU KKLIU & ILYA MONOSOV Cartolina Postale (Winds Measure)<br />BYRON METCALF / MARK SEELIG / STEVE ROACH Nada Terma (Projekt)<br />DAVID PARSONS Earthlight (Celestial Harmonies)<br />MIRKO UHLIG The Nightmiller (Mystery Sea)</span><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhxJleO4O0lsIGTN2Z71rLUIfaIW0JnI1t5pEBdqInAcYSzm3SZ4QXognjLoQZhN4_WPdq3lX7WnG0N3C461QEb9ULmlnsSFOr9YlCFNNARAiqwalgnXhV4LjC0-OEnZ90GNrEmN2kwjyo/s1600-h/bvdub.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 200px; height: 187px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhxJleO4O0lsIGTN2Z71rLUIfaIW0JnI1t5pEBdqInAcYSzm3SZ4QXognjLoQZhN4_WPdq3lX7WnG0N3C461QEb9ULmlnsSFOr9YlCFNNARAiqwalgnXhV4LjC0-OEnZ90GNrEmN2kwjyo/s200/bvdub.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5275307934769527426" /></a>Latest in a brilliant run of submersive aquifer ‘tronix from Brock Van Wey, going by the name Bvdub. Drawing a line straight through minimal techno regimes first internationalized by the early Kompakt sides of Reinhard and Wolfgang Voigt (specifically his releases as Gas), drawing in Chain Reaction notables such as Porter Ricks and early Monolake, connecting spacier Detroit imperatives, and finally culminating in a subgenre popularized by other similarly-inclined producers (Quantec, Deepchord, Koss, folks on the Echocord label), Bvdub continues to refine his sound to the point where he’s rapidly becoming a benchmark for this slowly expanding microgenre. There’s a lot of this kind of stuff engulfing our precious aural canals at the moment, which could be a detrimental thing to our psyches if the music wasn’t so wholly compelling. Of course, you have to meet it halfway or the molasses-thick minimal repetitiveness, minor key chromality, and dense weeds of reverb might get on your nerves. What separates Bvdub’s take on this strand of boom-tschak oceanic electrogauze is twofold: a general segregation from basic foursquare rhythms and a sound design suggesting natures personal rather than forestral. A true son of the loop da loop era, Bvdub is our best foggy bottom sculptor, chipping away at Detroit’s rusting corpus, exposing a mellifluous core few realized existed, working with a virtual paucity of sounds that achieve their grandeur by sheer act of repetitive will. It doesn’t hurt that this is a noise exquisitely lush, plush, and limned with hush. The title track, with its puffing beats, wheezing cymbals, and velveteen ambience, plays like an <span style="font-style:italic;">Autobahn</span> for the isolationist set, soft, wet, weepy, and low. Desolate synths shudder in the moist air, refracting and echoing endlessly on their cloudburst flights, as on the closing “It’s Too Late,” Bvdub slow dancing with tears in his eyes. Do we gleam infinite melancholia here? Utter despair? Errant euphoria? It’s a combination of all three, a music that revels in its own emotional ambiguity. Go on—immerse thyself. <span style="font-weight:bold;">DARREN BERGSTEIN</span> • <a href="http://www.quietus-recordings.com">www.quietus-recordings.com</a><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiCCdysICUODr4wefXv2amoMYy8wdmql4DKHEEdYC1Jo5481bSYXr7Rs5e-BWdWE1NcgzoWUfEuWCv6qCVGiui6fhHMEYiy17XedLeasr4ihVpOaUmZcrH24fFH-Oxwx0Dj-uicj2WXv0w/s1600-h/monosov.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 200px; height: 184px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiCCdysICUODr4wefXv2amoMYy8wdmql4DKHEEdYC1Jo5481bSYXr7Rs5e-BWdWE1NcgzoWUfEuWCv6qCVGiui6fhHMEYiy17XedLeasr4ihVpOaUmZcrH24fFH-Oxwx0Dj-uicj2WXv0w/s200/monosov.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5275309441713551346" /></a>Concerning <span style="font-style:italic;">Cartolina Postale</span>, quite apart from the message and its content that comes scrawled like grafitti on the back a postcard, the handwriting and style of a letter is often just as effective, if not more so, in conveying a certain human presence. The metal plate scrape and toothpicks that play a music box like bony fingers speak well to this: an elephant has a better chance of squirming through the eye of a needle than one does of alighting upon any inkling of a message here; the material is far too diffuse. There is a certain style at play, however, and thus some modicum of presence. Specifically, it's one that asserts itself through an interruption of the vagaries of time and any notion of totality. This isn't achieved positively but negatively: during its twenty-three minutes, the album is largely devoid of structure; it doesn't establish an atmosphere; and there is little, if any, trace of intent. What's left is a gradual drift of sonic dust through which single notes on music box gleam intermittently like tiny lights. As with a postcard, it's the fingerprint of a particular time and place; and like every fingerprint its a radical singularity. Only in this case, admittedly, it seems more about secrecy than identity. A devilish little postcard, this is. <span style="font-weight:bold;">MAX SCHAEFER</span> • <a href="http://www.windsmeasurerecordings.net">www.windsmeasurerecordings.net</a><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgwMIHFbJplR2KgfoGIM7bcUG2EyizGP3M2KMJEih0csmiy41q2ujVhcKQThU4Todg3MQRLKr8xz32D9L3uYodKexUCn-0ZwTNEtC-vodgDuNIRHzKeYUOtS3doVye0q1pzSW7fytscigI/s1600-h/nada.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 200px; height: 200px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgwMIHFbJplR2KgfoGIM7bcUG2EyizGP3M2KMJEih0csmiy41q2ujVhcKQThU4Todg3MQRLKr8xz32D9L3uYodKexUCn-0ZwTNEtC-vodgDuNIRHzKeYUOtS3doVye0q1pzSW7fytscigI/s200/nada.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5275318252376812690" /></a>Percussionist Metcalf marks the end of a trilogy of sorts with <span style="font-style:italic;">Nada Terma</span>, squaring the circle that began with his previous collaborations with fellow aural tribesmen Roach and Seelig on 2003’s <span style="font-style:italic;">Wachuma’s Wave</span> and 2004’s <span style="font-style:italic;">Mantram</span>. On this seventy-three minute excursion into the wild frontier of elder music and ancestral shamanism, Metcalf’s manifesto becomes wholly recognizable once the recording gathers steam, his percussive arsenal a baker’s dozen of frame, udu and earth drums, further augmented by the softer accents provided by tapping on clay pots and seed pods. Multi-instrumentalist Seelig surrounds Metcalf’s war-drumming in a cushion of bansuri flutes and plucked dilruba in addition to building some rich harmonic overtones thanks to his own vibrato of a voice. Roach, of course, wraps the whole affair in so many of his typically vivid, color-enhanced tones and myriad, swirling atmospheres it situates the listener right at the center of some ancient, mysterious retreat. Subtly altering moods predominate: what can feel like a powerfully earthshaking music one moment slowly shifts gears into climes both seductive and spiritual. But don’t get the idea that this is some exercise in well-dressed new age tedium—Roach’s heavenly noises time and again provide the foundation for Metcalf’s rock-solid beatstorms, particularly during the first indomitable half hour, the physicality of the drummer’s extraordinarily propulsive thunderstrikes practically a force of nature. Roach and Seelig have no choice but to keep pace by superimposing their own distinctive sonic flavors onto the febrile stew; naturally, the desert shaman’s kaleidoscopic textures reincarnate all sorts of primordial demons, through which feint Seelig’s piercing winds and arcing strings. The lengthy journey the album makes across its expansive running time does it justice—this is true trance music, relentless, hypnotic and very alive. <span style="font-weight:bold;">DARREN BERGSTEIN</span> • <a href="http://www.projekt.com">www.projekt.com</a><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiFVF0hl2kLOuEaxUVEhh7cqyCU3VIcxE2zEI3pABdp6Ke7C1m7crJCakaNhn4tef4KxqlxLaCVN2MFAnEvv7riW16DIZAsUccktJlHKd1q6VSNm2WYYmlGDuX8h_zbXjeo73wOmIFO7q4/s1600-h/Earthlight,jpg.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 200px; height: 200px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiFVF0hl2kLOuEaxUVEhh7cqyCU3VIcxE2zEI3pABdp6Ke7C1m7crJCakaNhn4tef4KxqlxLaCVN2MFAnEvv7riW16DIZAsUccktJlHKd1q6VSNm2WYYmlGDuX8h_zbXjeo73wOmIFO7q4/s200/Earthlight,jpg.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5275318130383264626" /></a>A seriously underrated talent that has embraced the same respect and awe for immense landscape and mystic realms as comrade-in-arms Steve Roach, composer/synthesist Parsons has for well over two decades realized a singular body of work that has embraced both an ambient ethos and the intricate, meditative harmonics of North Indian classical music. Parsons likens his work to the alap, the elongated introduction to Indian ragas, and in many ways such a description perfectly encapsulates the methodology of ambient music in the most literal sense, removed from yet reflecting Eno’s dictum of “music that can be simultaneously listened to and ignored.” Definitions often need upgrading, however: Parsons’ music is about as ignorable as the mountain vistas he often titles his epic pieces after. Abundant with prodigious chords, tones stretched thinner and thinner at such altitudes they beg for oxygen, and inveighed by the magnetic tensions brought on by otherworldly forces at play, <span style="font-style:italic;">Earthlight</span> is evocative in the most fantastical sense. The record’s glacial pace mimics the breathless pulse of tectonic plates shirking millennia, but monodimensional drone this isn’t. A pronounced mystic quality informs all of Parsons’ music, and the strange regions he traverses on this superb excursion are no different—space music of a spherical nature, austere yet finely-wrought and patterned, buoyed by a surfeit of mysterious textures and alien cadences, the album is wonderfully disorienting, suggesting rugged confines as well as farflung artifices. The title track irises open to reveal a multitude of erupting, heavenly electronic lightbeams soon to be pierced by an eldritch motif of misty mountain modulars and cushioned bells. “Altai Himalaya” harkens back to Parsons’ eponymous classic <span style="font-style:italic;">Himalaya</span>, aerated blasts of synth drifting in the wake of stratospheric jetstreams. Both “Beyond the Light” and “Corona” reveal a composer who’s come a long way since the simple two-chord notations of <span style="font-style:italic;">Tibetan Plateau</span>: vari-hued pigments of electronics flow silkily into and out of one another like kaleidoscopic oils, buffed by tablaesque sequencers, pealing intrasolar radiowaves and, in the case of “Corona”, truculent synths howling into the deep night. The penultimate twenty minutes that is “Bathing Light” seems to end too abruptly even at that considerable length, but taking into account the buzzsaw cut of its synths, its baleful atmosphere and incessant rhythmic momentum, it portends something of a new direction for Parsons, who once noted that his music was “about bathing in the sound.” Surely a most inviting proposition, for on <span style="font-style:italic;">Earthlight</span>, the water’s mighty warm indeed. <span style="font-weight:bold;">DARREN BERGSTEIN</span> • <a href="http://www.harmonies.com">www.harmonies.com</a><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjNnLMRAKAm0YdS-vlT8R2lxn6o_bab7j7fG8R8lug5BOwIi8w7pkCnxWsLrEwfhqS_ruetAt3_Wtxy27P5eBti0irIpTyReSjAipKduS_0S1z_oAFPWDXrYIccr2xT1KVfKJCwhywJ9DA/s1600-h/uhlig.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 200px; height: 176px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjNnLMRAKAm0YdS-vlT8R2lxn6o_bab7j7fG8R8lug5BOwIi8w7pkCnxWsLrEwfhqS_ruetAt3_Wtxy27P5eBti0irIpTyReSjAipKduS_0S1z_oAFPWDXrYIccr2xT1KVfKJCwhywJ9DA/s200/uhlig.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5275308657844223410" /></a>In <span style="font-style:italic;">The Night Miller</span>, there seems to be all the infinity of Mirko Uhlig's own absence—that is to say, it's a pure hole into which drains all of his past penchants for machines of esoteric purpose vainly struggling to jar or achieve autonomous operation. This is also to indicate that Uhlig's new resistance is a kind of non-resistance; a sensitivity to the elements, to their contours, density, dynamics, and timbre. He appears equally open to their symbolic import: to the way these sparsely textured atmospheres enable creation, time, infinity and multiple discrete universes to merge in a satori flash. As a CD, it lasts all of 36 minutes and spans some three tracks. It begins as a beatific luminescence that breathes air and ripples out into an imagined distance, evoking a weight of being behind every act. Uhlig's melodies develop slowly and the oneiric structures betray an undercurrent of stealthy depths. It's these depths that run into the albums second work, "Wooden Waiting", where an intense focus upon the fine detail of the unfolding electronic fields spreads over the immense richness of acoustic detail. Such slow-burning episodes of beautiful, elegant, emotionally affecting passages of ambience finds in the albums final piece an effective counterpoint, as grainy, hissing loops shake up and then paralyze the tracks motion. The move creates a dim space into which single guitar notes and rasping massed melodic lines withdraw, leaving the dawning sensation that all is evaporating in impenetrable darkness. Neither especially active or passive, <span style="font-style:italic;">The Nightmiller</span> nevertheless manages just enough permutation and variation of a limited set of materials. As a result, the sounds and spaces between them often float. Those acquainted with the vicelike brutality and recalcitrantly challenging Uhlig may find his wholehearted adoption of this elegiac tone difficult to fathom, just as those who begin here will find it hard to believe he's ever done anything else. <span style="font-weight:bold;">MAX SCHAEFER</span> • <a href="http://www.mysterysea.net">www.mysterysea.net</a>Darren Bergstein (Editor/Publisher)http://www.blogger.com/profile/03979361482585766858noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4680931152558950057.post-61962239848758262492008-11-24T10:22:00.008-05:002008-11-25T17:52:42.681-05:00Installment 23<font style="font-weight: bold;">COLOURFORM Visions of Surya (Virtual World)</font> <font style="font-weight: bold;"><br />ISHQ Timelapse in Mercury (Virtual Space)</font> <font style="font-weight: bold;"><br />OOPHOI Wurm Series 1 (Glacial Movements)</font> <font style="font-weight: bold;"><br />STEVE ROACH / ERIK WØLLO Stream of Thought (Projekt)<br />VARIOUS A Cleansing Ascension (Elevator Bath) <br />VARIOUS Resonant Embers (Edition Sonoro)</font><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiMeR74ocqeX4HSHF7yu9mF7x_xnElqvhQiUv8K_l9ymWOeASJEKoFlD_h23LHFV7oevVuP4y_iiafkwbtQQlMF2oNAa6b9iYWKoApDw4AlzhnqrSSW2hm7DaNkoow8mAERcX-MlWpgaJbJ/s1600-h/ishq_-_timelapse_in_mercury.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 200px; height: 200px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiMeR74ocqeX4HSHF7yu9mF7x_xnElqvhQiUv8K_l9ymWOeASJEKoFlD_h23LHFV7oevVuP4y_iiafkwbtQQlMF2oNAa6b9iYWKoApDw4AlzhnqrSSW2hm7DaNkoow8mAERcX-MlWpgaJbJ/s200/ishq_-_timelapse_in_mercury.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5271990525168406290" border="0"></a>Cornwall-based reclusive Matt Hillier, man of a thousand aliases—more recently Elve, Ishvara, and Indigo Egg—returns in most readily recognisable form, Ishq, a moniker he made a name with in the ambient community with the intelligent psy-chill of 2001’s <font style="font-style: italic;">Orchid</font>. <font style="font-style: italic;">Timelapse in Mercury</font> is the 4th release on Virtual and first in a new sub-imprint, Virtual Space, which projects "deeper and more outerspace music and explorations and music to float to" as its mission statement. Hillier apparently began the album before <font style="font-style: italic;">Orchid</font>, but has taken till this year to properly finish it, and it now bears some of the distinguishing sonic features of his more recent Virtual releases. Perhaps a finishing "refresh" has given a new sheen to timeless timbres, space-dusted and stretched into swathes of interstellar overdriven lushness. Hillier’s trademark hyper-synthetic cosmicity extends into a space-drift planet suite in several movements. <font style="font-style: italic;">TiM</font> is suspended somehow between infinite stasis and constant motion in manner conducive to shifting from peripheral listening to focused head-phasing, a habit of genuine ambient listening which much so-called "ambient" fails to cultivate. Hillier is something of a wizard of the cosmic-chill sound palette, not content, unlike many of his psy-peers, to peddle generic preset solutions, finding timbres that are recognisably within the genre template but tweaked enough to be otherised. They hang in space and twinkle like bright stars shifting in tonality or radiance. <font style="font-style: italic;">TiM</font>’s expansive spatial quality, with all its textural nebulae and supernovae, is undulled by the passage of time. Ladies and gentlemen, we are floating in Virtual Space.<br /><br />Meanwhile, back in the Virtual World, Hillier changes nomenclatural robes for those of Colourform, an exchange over time and space and existence, in view of collaborator Jake Stephenson’s sad demise in 2005. <font style="font-style: italic;">Visions of Surya</font> is the third VW release (following <font style="font-style: italic;">Magik Square of the Sun</font> and <font style="font-style: italic;">Infinite Garden</font>), and is a more world-ly counterpart to the space-y <font style="font-style: italic;">TiM</font>. <font style="font-style: italic;">VoS</font> is as highly coloured and imaginative as <font style="font-style: italic;">TiM</font>, coming on more like a kind of exotic sonic travelogue. Stephenson would have been known in Megadog-gy circles in the 90s as Optic Eye, and it occurs that the Virtual enterprise might be seen as a more grown up version of the children of that particular bong. Colourform channels aura-visions of an idealised Orient, with a kaleidoscopic <a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgoMRefRp1xOZ80gHuKJh8WJdETEIgXI3mexOYCgbljqn3zc2L6864haIGA2a-cae1spXmlbNBaaOGjvhFnUQcm4V2AzO9Yocy84126t7OcA0F6pKlxaWEhlgkEmKcncqP9XgALNuZ3IKiY/s1600-h/colourform_-_visions_of_surya.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; float: right; cursor: pointer; width: 200px; height: 200px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgoMRefRp1xOZ80gHuKJh8WJdETEIgXI3mexOYCgbljqn3zc2L6864haIGA2a-cae1spXmlbNBaaOGjvhFnUQcm4V2AzO9Yocy84126t7OcA0F6pKlxaWEhlgkEmKcncqP9XgALNuZ3IKiY/s200/colourform_-_visions_of_surya.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5271991424084836498" border="0"></a>quality echoing previous VW albums: it floats and drifts, wibbles and woobs, but with feet more in something like soil, hinting at a tangible real world below the virtual surface of its audio-culptural vagaries. When energies are gathered into rhythmic heft, beats are sweet and modulated, decorative rather than propulsive. Through Colourform, Hillier has drawn on Stephenson’s legacy to compile an electronicist’s delight of post-Orbist tones, pads and drones, choreographed for maximum horizontality while saying no to mindless dopedom. Its message a fitting epitaph for the imaginatively starved. Feed your head afresh. <font style="font-weight: bold;">ALAN LOCKETT</font> • <a href="http://www.v-i-r-t-u-a-l-w-o-r-l-d.com/">www.v-i-r-t-u-a-l-w-o-r-l-d.com</a><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhgrU8h-OkLPMhvMbc789rPDCaFau_frduFB3QsRqn6UtWrN4OwTqfv03B_gBSBOs3zzh-HBFxYmCsEc38hCYLtnfybI_Oe45QkNrCEnCyS7DrSY33knLk7CoJUP8dekkiD09v_VuAjzm_j/s1600-h/R-1289284-1206741869.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 200px; height: 182px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhgrU8h-OkLPMhvMbc789rPDCaFau_frduFB3QsRqn6UtWrN4OwTqfv03B_gBSBOs3zzh-HBFxYmCsEc38hCYLtnfybI_Oe45QkNrCEnCyS7DrSY33knLk7CoJUP8dekkiD09v_VuAjzm_j/s200/R-1289284-1206741869.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5271990527620883218" border="0"></a>Glacial Movements inaugurates the Würm Series to curate imaginary treks through the ice-fields of the most recent glaciation era. Artist brief is to create uninterrupted long- form pieces, a channel for immersive work articulating "the abyssal silence" of "the endless ice age". Gigi Gasparetti, Oophoi ideator, is as good as his word on <span style="font-style:italic;">An Aerial View</span>, promising an “airy drone with minimal variations”. He expressly shuns the Dark-mongering sonic tropes of deep-freeze bleakness, summoning up instead some of the spirit of Ur-Ambient. He eschews the broad brush of regulation issue low-end rumblings and atonal harshness in order to delineate a vast white expanse with more delicate synth brushes, a subtly evolving canvas for the simple swirls of an elegiac theremin. Gasparetti imagines himself “in flight over this Sleeping Earth, a solitary winged-being surrounded by winds, air, water, and ice”, a flight represented in a light and aerated long-format tract of endlessnessism. In the background a crystalline hovering with intimations of the weightless, effortless, as Gasparetti loops and re-loops, with minute thematic and timbral variations. Echoes of early Kosmische types suggest themselves: Göttsching perhaps, Cluster possibly. Midway the wide-openness of the soundscape attenuates to slender organ-like keyboard tones, intensely serene, as if floating on thermals toward stillpoint. Rather than morphological modelling of glacial geography, Oophoi depicts a kind of infinite floatpoint. Discreet environmentalisms add extra depth along the way, though the later sections, instead of building further, seem rather to divest themselves of layers to open up to a pristine minimalism. <span style="font-style:italic;">An Aerial View</span> is the sound of a slow, sad, serene smile on the void. <font style="font-weight: bold;">ALAN LOCKETT</font> • <a href="http://www.glacialmovements.com/">www.glacialmovements.com</a><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi7_wT_lhkz0dMc33Qe6tZUSI7XsQtRJ1J8lE9f2MbVPumvtkwVXTkzPxaodKqjV9IKS7OPdoS4569Zy8x__RPmsXRs15p3yLPszow3g35aAyMnz_RH07QGDJ3MWjpVOQntXAsEHKf3C0M/s1600-h/roachwollo.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 200px; height: 179px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi7_wT_lhkz0dMc33Qe6tZUSI7XsQtRJ1J8lE9f2MbVPumvtkwVXTkzPxaodKqjV9IKS7OPdoS4569Zy8x__RPmsXRs15p3yLPszow3g35aAyMnz_RH07QGDJ3MWjpVOQntXAsEHKf3C0M/s200/roachwollo.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5272243390814460306" /></a>Vibrant, eclectic and at times fetching mindmeld from two gents whose collective talents are more simpatico than you might think. <span style="font-style:italic;">Stream of Thought</span>'s back cover notes this recording as a “continuous stream of sonic consciousness in 19 parts”; though the many pieces stagger their running times, making for an episodic (neé filmic) narrative that may or may not rattle the chains of the proletariat, is of no import—such an accumulative variety of pulsing textures is so soldered they transcend the sum of the album’s numerous parts. Erik Wøllo’s musical background strikes similar chords to Steve Roach’s, as he’s trucked between atmospheric, drone, and even pastoral guitar ambience with equal ease, his recent recordings displaying a <span style="font-style:italic;">joie de vivre</span> that deflected sentimentality by simple dearth of their years-etched acumen. The smoldering aftereffect of Roach’s still-fresh <span style="font-style:italic;">Landmass</span> hovers like a Damoclesian blade over these proceedings, imbuing their entirety with the requisite compositional tension, but the duo’s salutations, styles, and substances merge effortlessly nevertheless. And surprises lay in store for those of patient dispositions. On the opening piece, sun-dappled guitars dance ceremoniously across a Steve Reich-ian flatbed of chiming percussion and ascending synths. This then morphs into the second movement, a recognizable Roach-mantra of whipping modular bass sequencers that the two free-associate a phalanx of electronics over. Similar patterns/patterning emerge as the album further unfolds, yet the one persistent conclusion to be drawn is that, much like the nebulous quality of REMsleep dreamstates, everything seems ephemeral, just out of reach, hallucinatory: so much occurs within each of the 19 segments that the various micro-events taking place can only be discerned by the spectator’s enthusiastic revisitation thereof—or at least by damn fine headphones. Roach and Wøllo tinker with each other’s muse to such calibrated effect that the resultant miasma becomes nigh on impossible to dissect, much less describe fully. Strange, offworld sounds curdle and ebb; rubbery beats spontaneously blossom only to quickly combust; guitar kindling icily shatter as they breach glacial membranes; shoals of deep space radiowaves oscillate through parsecs of blackness, designing malevolent shapes. Choose to explore each rapidly changing tributary singly (the closing fifteen-minute cavalcade of whorl and whirlygig alone nearly mandates the repeat button) or course down this <span style="font-style:italic;">Stream</span> as its makers intended. Either way, Roach and Wøllo got their senses working overtime—and ours, too. <span style="font-weight:bold;">DARREN BERGSTEIN</span> • <a href="http://www.projekt.com">www.projekt.com</a><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgiqMmQh5G3P6XgS2uDUcqBQNgkJBkuNdk3juiHJxIFE8V_Itmq6GxGu_CRZnRi9vSmvCI727Ji2S_S9vFNxbZThFc1xT_7d-RJeSbFgePA-4IcfmLA8h5gg0LXykasXnN6pD6-0udGrfQ/s1600-h/elevabath.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 200px; height: 200px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgiqMmQh5G3P6XgS2uDUcqBQNgkJBkuNdk3juiHJxIFE8V_Itmq6GxGu_CRZnRi9vSmvCI727Ji2S_S9vFNxbZThFc1xT_7d-RJeSbFgePA-4IcfmLA8h5gg0LXykasXnN6pD6-0udGrfQ/s200/elevabath.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5272244220520980754" /></a>Sagely practitioners of electro-stalactites that glimmer amidst pulses of hiss, flutter, and bubble, Elevator Bath here acknowledge their ten years of existence and, without dabbling in the quixotic, gather together traces of what is still yet to come. <span style="font-style:italic;">A Cleansing Ascension</span> amounts to nothing less than a constant bath of sounds, lights, images, and movements from the likes of Matt Shoemaker, Keith Berry, Jim Haynes, Rick Reed, Dale Lloyd and Adam Pacione, to name a few. The artists on hand summon a wide breath of events that travel in material waves and which build to substantial proportions such that listeners may float on them like straws. The vast majority of tracks are previously unreleased and a good many click, spit, gurgle, and growl with subterranean menace. "Warning Ataraxia", from the aforementioned Shoemaker, knows moments of ever-heightening subterfuge, as sheets of high end debris grow more caustic and ride out on a crest of propulsive electricity. Others never entirely outstrip this basic setting, but they effectively take it up in different ways. "Untitled 149", from Francisco Lopez, drips and reverberates like a cavern deep beneath the surface of a distant planet, while Dale Lloyd's contribution features a rich, sumptuous drone that is wreathed in swooping high frequency susurrations, and which becomes ever-more frazzled for having been so rudely disturbed from its sedimental slumber. Although dystopian drones are generally the rule, warm, floating chords and temperate half-melodies, such as those that shadow Tom Recchion's "Drift Tube", appear at crucial points throughout the work so as to illuminate the stereo spectrum. The proceedings thus remain clearly in focus even while being highly vulnerable and challenging. <span style="font-weight:bold;">MAX SCHAEFER</span> • <a href="http://www.elevatorbath.com">www.elevatorbath.com</a><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhZw_9PEAy0Kp-Az4RwN0Qvv-_6cqN1bCedIwTF4H7Alf47J7PCYyoiDBMb41PHNUCaqoUHWsEISl6CVkk7HaR9JQpXo11kjjBhk_MRd8mjE24wPRaBf41vOticWkqB-A97LQ3y-JCnNOxA/s1600-h/resonantembers.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 200px; height: 200px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhZw_9PEAy0Kp-Az4RwN0Qvv-_6cqN1bCedIwTF4H7Alf47J7PCYyoiDBMb41PHNUCaqoUHWsEISl6CVkk7HaR9JQpXo11kjjBhk_MRd8mjE24wPRaBf41vOticWkqB-A97LQ3y-JCnNOxA/s200/resonantembers.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5271990528588333586" border="0"></a><span style="font-style: italic;">Resonant Embers</span> compiles Paul Bradley and accomplices previously released through parent label, Twenty Hertz. Seven artists linked by a shared aesthetic (let’s call it "experimental") with differing takes: a harder outside of sound art and austere ambience with a soft centre of post-Romanticist melodic drones. First up, NWW collaborator, Matthew Waldron, re-cranks his irr. app. (ext.) vehicle for an discomfiting drive fuelled by a wierd mixture of dissonant effluvia. Inside “Whickering Mechanical Parapropalaehoplophorus” a slowly modulating sound hovers behind an up-close rattle and hum. Twisted moans and a buzz rendered with slapback echo (airplanes? Insect buzz?) infest the sound field. There ensues a woozy stagger attended by an ineffable feeling of fascinated discomfort. There are more corroded metal shapes and post-Industrial wastelands on “Animate structures No.1”, over which environmental collagist jgrzinich scatters a windblown array of field recordings of high tension wires and rummagings from the blasted post-Soviet heath of his adoptive Estonia. His piece sounds less like electronic music than the inarticulate speech of nature’s dark heart. More palatable musical soundscapery comes from Miguel Tolosa and project manager Bradley. Tolosa’s project Ubeboet offers in “Agone” an ecstasy of haunting ethereality, smartly smudged. Strings at a remove and sub-aqueous operatics whisper forth from within a carpet of delicate pads, a euphonic shimmer of drone guilded by a ghost violin. Tone-poetry in motion. The unjustly unsung Bradley seems lately to have gradually removed the acousmatic veils from his sounds to reveal their guitar-generated nature. He spools out an electraglide in blue of weaving guitar strata not far removed from Aidan Baker, current doyenne of drone-guitarscapism. “Kaleidoscope” is admittedly more synthetic, less gritty, but still imbued with textural detail cycling across the stereofield, further tones being twirled into a mix of pristine steel lightly blurred at the edges. In between, veteran Colin Potter in “Bella (direct current)” alchemises liquid drones from base metal (bells, actually), sounds swelling and relenting, hypnotically heaving. Bradley protegé, Maile Colbert, and mysterious accomplice Tellemake, spins her voice through a series of looping devices and VLF recordings, in a style somewhere twixt a less woozed-up Grouper and a more corporeal version of the vox-spectres from Akira Rabelais’ <span style="font-style: italic;">Spellewauerynsherde</span>. A mournful closure comes via doleful occasional black humorist, Andrew Liles, who plays it straight here; the breathy lilt of a violin steeped in Balkan noir emerges from some doom-laden low end-of-pianisms to unravel through ominous tolling. Liles’ “The Relentlessly Banal Landscape” strikes as a rather spare and sad affair, and fails to sound the right endnote for what proves to be a curate’s egg of a collection. <font style="font-weight: bold;">ALAN LOCKETT</font> • <a href="http://www.editionsonoro.com/">www.editionsonoro.com</a>Darren Bergstein (Editor/Publisher)http://www.blogger.com/profile/03979361482585766858noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4680931152558950057.post-79109704719698541602008-11-10T02:07:00.029-05:002008-11-10T17:06:04.145-05:00Installment 22<span style="font-weight:bold;">ALPHA WAVE MOVEMENT Terra (Harmonic Resonance)<br />JEFFREY KOEPPER Sequentaria (Air Space)<br />THE MINISTRY OF INSIDE THINGS Ambient Elsewhere (Synkronos)<br />SYNDROMEDA & MATT HOWARTH Mythical Pursuit (Horizon)<br />WINTHERSTORMER Woodwork (Bajkal) Electric Fairytales (Bajkal)</span><br /><br />This week, I dip my toes (and birth this post) into that subphylum of electronic sound euphemistically tagged “Berlin school”, or as it is sometimes ambiguously branded, “synth/sequencer” music. Though both terms are often used interchangeably, and usually with little thought to the exactitude of their definitions, shadings, literalisms, and descriptions, the measure of their journalistic shorthand not only tends to devaluate many of the artists operating under said sobriquets (in spite of the necessary evil that requires such terminology be used), but doing so often sets my own teeth on edge. The generation’s leading lights from whence such terms arose—pretty much all post-krautrock electronic music, though more specifically referencing Tangerine Dream, Klaus Schulze, Ashra/Manuel Gottsching, aside from the misnomer that all these musicians were Berlin-based—never could have foresaw what they eventually spawned.<br /><br />For the sake of argument and context, however erroneous one might think it, I’ll continue to use “Berlin school” if for no other reason than to maintain some sense of referent, order, understanding and sanity. (This will also be continued in one or two follow-up essays as well.) Regardless, the various artists who have splintered off from those 70s “movements”, geographical origins notwithstanding, seem to simultaneously embrace and distance themselves from the baggage attendant with the terminology. This is disingenuous at best, ignorant at worst: anyone working within a certain defined set of stylistic parameters, be it ambient, techno, dubstep, et al, are subject to whatever standards are ultimately defined by working within said genre. Essentially, you make your bed, etc. etc. Again, there’s a fine line between strict “genre music” (where the musician is comfortable working within their chosen categorical skin) and those individuals extrapolating, or at least expounding upon, the limitations of form. Both can, of course, be rendered either terminally retro and hopelessly derivative or markedly innovative, succeeding as such on their own terms. This column’s “roundup”, as it were, is not by any means intended to be comprehensive nor definitive, simply a glimpse into common aesthetics shared by some contemporary practitioners who nevertheless pursue differing objectives.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi0H9pJBn-ZqO6cHlGhWxwe2WD0PbURu5X1kk0PETRCBb3sJBguu6dXkHnFOs1CGCQaNsEhyY9_tnpcnEzbU_EGeMRlYM5hd3PGbtMmpWMVbmCkoxGnPtUY7hnsMbLObvR8KiS6We7LReo/s1600-h/terraaudio.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 200px; height: 198px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi0H9pJBn-ZqO6cHlGhWxwe2WD0PbURu5X1kk0PETRCBb3sJBguu6dXkHnFOs1CGCQaNsEhyY9_tnpcnEzbU_EGeMRlYM5hd3PGbtMmpWMVbmCkoxGnPtUY7hnsMbLObvR8KiS6We7LReo/s200/terraaudio.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5266930344200046930" /></a>Gregory Kyryluk, whose predominant recording locus has been as Alpha Wave Movement, remains something of a under-recognized figure on the “scene” despite a career dating back to the mid 90s and an impressive (if smaller when measured against other Berlin school graduates) catalog. In fact, Kyryluk is one of the few odd men out—many of his recordings do indeed adopt the Teutonic syntax, but he’s equally limber at creating broadbased cinematic ambient that coordinate more than a few substantially arresting textures and motifs. <span style="font-style:italic;">Terra</span> originally soundtracked a DVD sporting its name, though Kyryluk came to his senses and gave the audio portion a proper unveiling. It’s one of his most varied, and by dearth thereof, one of his most inviting works, alternately quiet and serene one moment, kinetic the next, yet of a well-considered piece (and pace) that thwarts charges of ideaistic schizophrenia. “Emerald Passage” in fact makes use of gorgeously exulted piano amidst curtains of synthetic strings, melancholic sans triteness, and most definitely not a barometer for what follows. “Liquid Garden” partakes of the kind of interspatial starshine that Patrick O’Hearn first dabbled with on his earliest Private Music recordings, synths bright and airy, augmented by gently swelling flurries of effects. Tracks such as the pregnant, deep-sky pulses of “Cloudmaker” demonstrate Kyryluk’s unabashed passion for landscape, while “Surrender & Flow” finally introduces softly ebbing sequencers into the Alpha Wave mainframe, a series of wonderfully throbbing patterns that recall Jonn Serrie’s more lucid moments. Kyryluk is nothing if not versatile, however: the laminate binding “Terra Infinitus” proffers moods that probe as they darken, dusky wafts of sound that give way to a beautifully spoked sequencer array of moogy goodness. Alpha-betize onto your shelves, pronto. <span style="font-weight:bold;">DARREN BERGSTEIN</span> • <a href="http://www.home.earthlink.net/~alphawav/">www.home.earthlink.net/~alphawav/</a><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj6z6oTfVakKyilfSr-IjwJiQ1Lx7f1z80BOPkpXFVoJUhnfTnAgDawzjQcj_2OW4XP7UoUPShN8-zSVGN9sYc7i_LS-cp3vPu0obfihOKgV8pSXj3a3tjjPjSzM9mYn9-QmuxZcHF9TxM/s1600-h/koepper4.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 200px; height: 200px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj6z6oTfVakKyilfSr-IjwJiQ1Lx7f1z80BOPkpXFVoJUhnfTnAgDawzjQcj_2OW4XP7UoUPShN8-zSVGN9sYc7i_LS-cp3vPu0obfihOKgV8pSXj3a3tjjPjSzM9mYn9-QmuxZcHF9TxM/s200/koepper4.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5266930490529060530" /></a>Third time is indeed a charm in Jeffrey Koepper’s case—<span style="font-style:italic;">Sequentaria</span> demonstrates a guy who can’t be stopped, and no one should try. A man so in love with electronic sound and its capabilities that he proudly lists the equipment used for each track (though granted this is practically de rigueur amongst synth aficionados), Koepper possesses some extraordinary compositional dexterity and a flair for the dramatic that enable his roaring electrifications to deflect whatever cursory TD glances are thrown at them. And those referents exist in abundance: “Blue Sector” dodges bullets shot out from <span style="font-style:italic;">Hyperborea</span> and <span style="font-style:italic;">Tangram</span>; “Astral Projection” and “Near Machinery” feloniously challenge <span style="font-style:italic;">Thief</span>’s similarly sleek, fleet, streamlined assaults; “Synchronous” is simply pure sequencer dazzle, informed by a supine grace underpinned with stealthy ferocity. Comparisons, influences, quotation marks aside, Koepper’s creations dare you to holler “foul!”—svelte and savvy, a smooth operator twisting knobs in a display of balletic razzledazzle, it’s apparent to anyone well-schooled in, well, Berlin school techniques, that Koepper’s malleability, his honest embracement of the Teutonic birthright, oozing the right stuff, neuters any charges of “retro” that might be levied. Once sent spiraling across the ten-minute breadth of “Creation”, as Koepper’s sequencers Prophet-ize a simultaneous second coming of Richard Pinhas’ own fevered (tangerine) dreams, the only necessary choice is one of total submission to its onslaught. Smashing. <span style="font-weight:bold;">DARREN BERGSTEIN</span> • <a href="http://www.jeffreykoepper.com">www.jeffreykoepper.com</a><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgEd4lRGbI9efexk-JsOdIPEoImz-qIz-EDcG0KhjHY3F4HOVamxHc9h3x7GTctus9WfEtuAym8gyN1U4mgdptSXW_kQRZ_djJ1bvV4e3YWR3k9g_dDe_nCC2mjdVIEpeLnxFIM8yGfTYY/s1600-h/synk28.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 180px; height: 180px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgEd4lRGbI9efexk-JsOdIPEoImz-qIz-EDcG0KhjHY3F4HOVamxHc9h3x7GTctus9WfEtuAym8gyN1U4mgdptSXW_kQRZ_djJ1bvV4e3YWR3k9g_dDe_nCC2mjdVIEpeLnxFIM8yGfTYY/s200/synk28.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5266930712385548658" /></a>Aside from hosting the long-running Star’s End radio show, and staging Philadelphia’s inimitable Gatherings series of electronic music events, Chuck Van Zyl’s an accomplished synthesist in his own right, and sorely neglected to boot. His Synkronos label hosted much of his own work (often cloaked under numerous aliases), either solo or in collaboration with other local musicians; the many cassettes Synkronos released in the 90s are now (rightly so) much sought-after collector’s items. In tandem with experimental guitarist Art Cohen as The Ministry of Inside Things, <span style="font-style:italic;">Ambient Elsewhere</span> is the duo’s third album, a two-disc pack recorded live at various venues in and around the Philly domain. The jury’s out as to whether Van Zyl and Cohen’s finest moments ultimately arise in the breathy company of avid enthusiasts—nevertheless, studio-bound or not, their synchronous talents are duly crystallized herein. Inspiration still comes from areas Teutonic, neé Berlinesque, of course, but the disc’s stellar, often bravura, moments categorically blast “influences” to smithereens. Serious they may be as they plug in and coax glimmering textures from their respective instruments, but clearly the duo revel in sculpting these myriad, grandiose soundscapes. Van Zyl makes optimal use of mellotron and numerous string synths, particularly on “Science Fiction,” around which ghostly voices curdle and moog sprites engage in hushed reverences. “Dubzilla” and its cousin “Markzilla” effect reasonably yeoman mergers of contemporary IDM squish and Gottschingy guitar, Cohen’s massaged chords things of dappled beauty. “Poor Alice” finds the mellotron returning in force, buttressed by pinging bass figures and an insistent, sinister pulse. Disc two’s opening “Aphelion Season” works more scare tactics into the mix, Van Zyl’s electronics trading East Asian chimes with sounds of vast, cavernous natures. However, the eleven minute “Icicle Falls” is where Cohen really gets to shine, picking out gentle Frippian arpeggios amidst a qualitative backbeat and morningsun synths. In fact, if anything underscores what this dynamic duo achieve on <span style="font-style:italic;">Ambient Elsewhere</span> it’s an enormous variety of sound and vision, light on categorical baggage, heavy on imagistic ballast. If ever these two gents can bulk up their catalog’s largesse, synth clergy the world over will be flocking for a glimpse of Things Inside. <span style="font-weight:bold;">DARREN BERGSTEIN</span> • <a href="http://www.synkronosmusic.com">www.synkronosmusic.com</a><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjSRpg8g2dfz6okydl5zX7r50fOCfPqwGglavxuqI20P4YNNtkIzHGfk4IsjKORkhR56TA0XtJM6YSA3XSw5AgL-NrVNnxIgWcp-gniZ15_bz5maOzjZt5Ylh6RXdRlZ461BxIowoXilyc/s1600-h/mythicalPursuitCover.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 200px; height: 199px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjSRpg8g2dfz6okydl5zX7r50fOCfPqwGglavxuqI20P4YNNtkIzHGfk4IsjKORkhR56TA0XtJM6YSA3XSw5AgL-NrVNnxIgWcp-gniZ15_bz5maOzjZt5Ylh6RXdRlZ461BxIowoXilyc/s200/mythicalPursuitCover.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5266930859255736898" /></a>Full-on synth/sequencer music is pretty much the name of the game regarding Belgium keyboardist Danny Budts, aka Syndromeda. He’s built a respectable career working his particular skein of genre music, consciously aping the more salient moments of both TD and Schulze when required. <span style="font-style:italic;">Mythical Pursuit</span> actually wrings a good deal of compositional grit from the Schulzian model, Budts executing six fairly lengthy sequencer treatises of considerable zap and electrical pram. The distinguishing factor on this <span style="font-style:italic;">Pursuit</span>, however, can be discovered perusing “collaborator” Matt Howarth’s accompanying comic, which is embedded in this specially enhanced CD and adds an demonstrably evocative visual element to Budts already frenzied tremolos. As interesting as Howarth’s panels are, however, immersing oneself in the Syndromeda soundworld wholecloth might well be the preferable method of interaction for the average listener. Such an approach is well worth the effort: “Hidden in the Asteroid Belt” modulates sequencer rush against tidal waves of soaring analogics; “Her Insane Majesty’s Entropic Empire” marries Howarth’s dystopian fantasies to Budts’ latent tangerine phasing, wind-whipped effects and interstellar soar. Budts’ tonal phraseology does cozy up a bit too closely to Berlin alumni for comfort, but ignoring what his objectives truly are—mining a seam of electronic music rich enough to coarse through a roster of international artist’s veins for over 30 years—doesn’t diminish from the palpable tensions he judiciously coaxes from his patchcord array. <span style="font-weight:bold;">DARREN BERGSTEIN</span> • <a href="http://www.hmnetwork.com">www.hmnetwork.com</a><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiS6XBWLwSweeZ6b-fYQS5dVnn9Xg3JZt1GyfopkyEpl4tYLdzrjnoJ1hyphenhyphen-82nqmD8FC8co1BdzAWrCBfD36RNYzSpadB9YCsHx7h4XEkiru1EzT1Q9vpZDBW3hnfSfviGnDvZzsXQfelc/s1600-h/woodwork.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 200px; height: 200px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiS6XBWLwSweeZ6b-fYQS5dVnn9Xg3JZt1GyfopkyEpl4tYLdzrjnoJ1hyphenhyphen-82nqmD8FC8co1BdzAWrCBfD36RNYzSpadB9YCsHx7h4XEkiru1EzT1Q9vpZDBW3hnfSfviGnDvZzsXQfelc/s200/woodwork.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5266931083785920290" /></a>Norwegian quartet Wintherstormer must sure as hell make the pillars of heaven shake whenever the electrical arcs of their synths brave the frigid air. Led by mainman synth artisan Terje Winther, this mesmeric group, with a mere two recordings to their credit (minus an official live CDR), are poised to become one of the prime flag-bearers of the aught’s synth/sequencer paradigm. With Redshift on indefinite hiatus, only colleagues Airsculpture and Radio Massacre International can mark out similar territory; that aside, the quartet manage a calamitous, incomparable noise. On <span style="font-style:italic;">Woodwork</span>, synths breathe fire as sequencers tumble down their scored mountainsides like molten lava. A keen experimentalist propensity informs the group’s artistic bent, as vital an element in their make-up as the instruments they employ: “Musical Equitation Extracted from Firelogs” employs weird whispered voices, snatches of synthetic musique concrete, chattering percussives, siren-like synth wails, and demonic bursts of spectral electronic ephemera in a wild concoction recalling David Vorhaus’s White Noise as much as TD’s <span style="font-style:italic;">Zeit</span>. The over half-hour “Monochrome" is a stunning tour-de-force that encompasses Reichian tinkertoy perambulations, morose blocks of synth, weeping mellotrons and processed flecks of errant guitar strain, a bracing display equaling the finest moments of its Teutonic forebears. <a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj_-lQQzpYrkvUhG6SpPOoRPa5BurZ_pbnbDzMphrdhiqkTL5s5Wrj5kpwDgkeMSPtpybso-fI5EvDeM9Y-7C8KgAOH8Dk1jJYe6J-R_8BKwupwA1YUOPDAQ4Nz0LzuLZW1c7aIoUyuKOA/s1600-h/electricfairytales.jpg"><img style="float:right; margin:0 0 10px 10px;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 200px; height: 200px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj_-lQQzpYrkvUhG6SpPOoRPa5BurZ_pbnbDzMphrdhiqkTL5s5Wrj5kpwDgkeMSPtpybso-fI5EvDeM9Y-7C8KgAOH8Dk1jJYe6J-R_8BKwupwA1YUOPDAQ4Nz0LzuLZW1c7aIoUyuKOA/s200/electricfairytales.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5266931319605372066" /></a>The follow-up, 2008’s <span style="font-style:italic;">Electric Fairytales</span>, in many ways betters its predecessor, an often mind-numbing, dizzying spectacle of electronic gimcrackery. “Cucumber Salad” is all sequencer spark and guitar oomph, barreling along fierce frontal boundaries patrolled by klaxon-like modulars and hollering ‘trons. The monstrous deepspace shoals of “Rising Ashes” portends great hostile landscapes where multi-limbed creatures roam, their footprints tactile evidence of electronics reconfiguring alien geography; synths intimidate each other as they circle about, moogs screaming, inimical soundbursts recalling similar flavors cooked up by Pauline Oliveros and Donald Buchla in the mad 60s heyday of experimental synth flight. Temporarily quashing the sequencer pulse, the quartet set off for regions unknown, and we willingly, voluntarily, enthusiastically accompany them. Utterly brilliant stuff, required listening for either the remotely curious or longtime diehard. <span style="font-weight:bold;">DARREN BERGSTEIN</span> • <a href="http://www.wintherstormer.no">www.wintherstormer.no</a> <br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">APALUSA Obadiah (Low Point)<br />ARCTIC HOSPITAL Neon Veils (Lantern)<br />COH Strings (Raster-Noton)<br />COH / COSEY FANNI TUTTI Coh Plays Cosey (Raster-Noton)<br />KYLE BOBBY DUNN Fragments and Compositions (Sedimental)<br />FREIBAND & MACHINEFABRIEK Oahu (Low Point)<br />NILS HELSTROM Another Moment for the Memory (Electric Requiems)<br />I AM SEAMONSTER Nebulum | Constellatrix (Basses Frequences)<br />JASON KAHN & ASHER Vista (and/OAR)<br />LULL Like a Slow River (Glacial Movements)<br />LIONEL MARCHETTI & SEIJIRO MURAYAMA Hatali Atseli (L'Echange des Yuex) (Intransitive)<br />SETH NEHIL & MATT MARBLE Ecllipses (and/OAR)<br />SAWAKO Bitter Sweet (12k)<br />HOWARD STELZER Bond Inlets (Intransitive)<br />THE WINTERHOUSE Lost (Dataobscura)</span><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjsC_ML1IRB-HiI4sN1LqvRtm2CRhhBCkMWhxhA5R9rFtbSpRKG3nWghj60FMEDbz6Y4plKdxqfxFjPnsV_e4kw0Vl_pKGkhFPhfqycoXKfr-N27mLYJUhBtykA5nRw3eKgAsLA6whh800/s1600-h/R-150-1452397-1220802467.jpeg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 127px; height: 150px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjsC_ML1IRB-HiI4sN1LqvRtm2CRhhBCkMWhxhA5R9rFtbSpRKG3nWghj60FMEDbz6Y4plKdxqfxFjPnsV_e4kw0Vl_pKGkhFPhfqycoXKfr-N27mLYJUhBtykA5nRw3eKgAsLA6whh800/s200/R-150-1452397-1220802467.jpeg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5266938372951510018" /></a>A lowlight coven of guitar-drone crones has quietly emerged out of these grey'n'green Isles in the last year. The common ground between them is not simply source instrument, but the use of raw sounds and processing techniques along with a blending of ambient, drone and post-rock knowledge bases. The likes of mwvm, Wereju, and Low Point supremo Gareth Hardwick have been mapping this terrain, along with Nottingham’s Dan Layton, who now makes a bid for promotion to the front rank with his Apalusa project’s third and most substantial outing. Over the course of <span style="font-style:italic;">Obadiah</span>’s 50 minutes, he weaves a drone-heavy fabric with dark materials drawn from somewhere between Justin Broadrick's Final frontiers and Stars of the Lid in tape-hiss happy mode (e.g. <span style="font-style:italic;">The Ballasted Orchestra</span>'s "Taphead"). Layton shows himself to be his own man, though, and more interested in the fluidity and extension of sonorities than in tonal terrorism. “Obadiah 1” sets the tone, building from edge of darkness palaeontology, navigating an ominous undertow before ascending in a heaving swell of reverberant processed steel strata, simultaneously rough-edged and mellifluous, moving into “Obadiah 2”. This second scenario has a more harmonic script, with similar serially billowing textures, noise-nudging, feedback-flirting. Final movement, “How Do You Like Your Blue-Eyed Boy, Mr Death?” heads back down to trawl around in a headachey vortex of abyssal churnings, tapping into a seam of underground digs of the type curated by noted UK archaeologists Jonathan Coleclough, Colin Potter and Paul Bradley. Sounds are stretched far out from source through heavy-duty software manipulations into twisted swathes and sinister rumblings attended by creeped-out phantasms. Heavy weather, but the ride’s worth it for the more questing adventurers at the dark-drone/ambient-guitar interface. The bonus disc, for those quick enough on the uptake, is a well captured live piece that should speak volumes to Kranky-ites and Hypnos-philes alike. <span style="font-weight:bold;">ALAN LOCKETT</span> • <a href="http://www.low-point.com">www.low-point.com</a><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEirH3D8rY6_Rjy2FUvkgurEBLCDJg3X6VfW4tz-ETPlDDePJUH660afuNzsixq3lz2LJEoDvuosee5YfsXiu3160S4hnk4ZBboPSC4MuPH4_mL-QlFSljzRmMyQ5uDY5RYXWWcoPeoeWuU/s1600-h/arctic.jpeg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 200px; height: 178px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEirH3D8rY6_Rjy2FUvkgurEBLCDJg3X6VfW4tz-ETPlDDePJUH660afuNzsixq3lz2LJEoDvuosee5YfsXiu3160S4hnk4ZBboPSC4MuPH4_mL-QlFSljzRmMyQ5uDY5RYXWWcoPeoeWuU/s200/arctic.jpeg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5266939387060963042" /></a>Arctic Hospital houses Wisconsin-based producer Eric Bray, already with a moderately-received Narita debut, <span style="font-style:italic;">Citystream</span>, under his belt, and a sideline spot in ambient post-rock ensemble, The World On Higher Downs. Bray works a vein of techno that’s either dated or timeless, depending on your perspective, a mélange of, let's say for brevity's sake, '90s Detroit techno progressions woven with early Warp threads. First issue on Plop’s new "dance" offshoot, Lantern, <span style="font-style:italic;">Neon Veils</span> spools out reels of solidly composed thumpy retro-futurism, though the cumulative effect of samey material proves somewhat cloying to these ears. The differences between opener “Sunset Circle” with its stiff metallic functionalism and “Encompass”, with its more elaborate barrage of electronic detritus is small, but in this difference lies the "I" that helps transcend the "D" in a (presumably) IDM hybrid that too often falls between two stools. Surprisingly, for one whose ambient aim is true in his TWOHD incarnation, the track-patients in Bray's Arctic Hospital are almost permanently wired up, struggling to juggle a certain barely restrained minimalism with the pull to full-on doof-ism. Tracks such as “Stepping Back” are full of busy battery that ultimately feels like a hollow illusion of purposive activity. “Night Carrier” finally seeks a radical solution by eating itself, or rather transmuting halfway into two quite different beasts/beats, before disintegrating into digital entropy. It may be claimed that the spirit of the age of technical prowess is captured herein, but the butterfly of substantial and individual vision is elusive. <span style="font-weight:bold;">ALAN LOCKETT</span> • <a href="http://www.myspace.com/lanternrecords">www.myspace.com/lanternrecords </a><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg7yYPIwciJkhXCQHos2HGVEO2cOTcSQbLj8dVBqn4HC9EpfljTSjOErKmtp1xNu5KkFe1e8mXosgZtqnhQIDF97EIPaqFQf_VzgZb9pSPMceJi4zjN0PFlslHi0NCrTwSj2nNwfng-ZJk/s1600-h/coh.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 200px; height: 180px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg7yYPIwciJkhXCQHos2HGVEO2cOTcSQbLj8dVBqn4HC9EpfljTSjOErKmtp1xNu5KkFe1e8mXosgZtqnhQIDF97EIPaqFQf_VzgZb9pSPMceJi4zjN0PFlslHi0NCrTwSj2nNwfng-ZJk/s200/coh.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5267152093751840290" /></a>The encounter of Ivan Pavlov (and Coh) with veteran underground counterculture maven Cosey Fanni Tutti on Raster Noton sends out signal even before noise is emitted: a communion of the designer post-digital uber-order of the RN universe with the chaos of industrial alt-performance. Purportedly Coh plays Cosey “deals with concepts of honesty, trust, privacy, communication as well as (perception of) sexuality.” This offers a conceptual get-out for a project whose musical merits are distinctly dubious at various junctures. Pavlov’s microsonic splicings of Cosey’s vocalese may be familiar to those with a knowledge of Maja Ratkje’s <span style="font-style:italic;">Voice</span> album, but that worked more with the grain of the voice, whereas Coh retains slivers of signification in its textual content whose intended import is reinforced by lyrics printed in the accompanying booklet. Not that there’s a plethora of profundity in what seems very basic and (deliberately?) unpoetic verbal expression. What diversion there is to be had resides in the jouissance of the post- play with performance. Coh acts as main coordinator, chopping vox up into phonemes to function as cybernetic rhythm, as on “Near You”, or "Fuck it", a chaotic piece of lurch and stutter. Or turning syllables into lead lines, hitching plosives and fricatives to other sounds on the unkempt fragment-strewn collage of “Crazy”. Elsewhere Pavlov’s tech-trix defer to Cosey, on the sussurations and breathy humming of “Inside”, or the largely wordless “Lost”, whereon plaintive vox lies low before mounting slowly, time-stretched, strident screams adding to an air of abandon and derangement. File under experimental. And retreat. <a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiH3xyb1eI332xaQbKUIJAHNiO5SYk50OzosquVyao4AzC-SmLFcrSPcqYHvHQQcBQG0HhvT0Jc7UvBnn8_KTsKQS92vMBeyy6J8Y0QZu0OUZH2llKXjnxdy5N2VPmO8rk1k9rFgvw_FFY/s1600-h/strings.jpeg"><img style="float:right; margin:0 0 10px 10px;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 106px; height: 150px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiH3xyb1eI332xaQbKUIJAHNiO5SYk50OzosquVyao4AzC-SmLFcrSPcqYHvHQQcBQG0HhvT0Jc7UvBnn8_KTsKQS92vMBeyy6J8Y0QZu0OUZH2llKXjnxdy5N2VPmO8rk1k9rFgvw_FFY/s200/strings.jpeg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5266938845692146482" /></a>In contrast, <span style="font-style:italic;">Strings</span>, Pavlov’s electro-acoustic study of string-driven things starts out as if offering a fresh spin on the glitch-funk and chamber étude formula of Alva Noto and Sakamoto (cf., <span style="font-style:italic;">Vrioon</span>, <span style="font-style:italic;">Insen</span>), but proceeds to take other instrumental and stylistic turnings, including a Rasterized Namlook/Öçal. At the start, “Andante Facile” in particular stomps on similar soft pedals to Noto+’moto with its blending of processed piano motifs with digi-rhythmics. Coh, though, is less clipped and diamond cut than Noto, allowing the raw into his audio-cookbook. His no(i)se is generally kept [Photo]clean, though not always pleasing to behold. On “No Monsters No Rock” guitars are brutally manmachine-handled, their skizzing giving way to sub-kerrang bludgeoning, with echoes of the poundings of Pan Sonic. The oud of “Spiritoso Con Amore” wanders innocently around—the suspense killing—before ending up in a den of excrescent digitalia that seeks to convert it to an unholy path to which it eventually succumbs on “Devoto Maestoso Al Fine”, dragged into a thicket of thrumming overdrive. The less studied treatments on the Orientalist saz and oud pieces on disc 2’s “SU-U”, a 17-minute exploration of the instruments’ timbres with sympathetic droning and (eventual) rhythms, is the most appealing piece, nicely balancing the "nature" of source sound with the "artifice" of engineering. <span style="font-weight:bold;">ALAN LOCKETT</span> • <a href="http://www.raster-noton.net">www.raster-noton.net</a><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi8jQ2J5EeiekeDAFMNYSP3zZB0LcUuFUNzDkbfcAVsqSoEOlRV-OwNdbTGCJXEmrO8eAjB0p0DNCxK5x88RgZqqmEq8GkKDNrSecxNWAhrHgzpaXjwyc01PFapCtc7Jv8DjX5eD2h9LAk/s1600-h/dunn.jpeg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 200px; height: 199px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi8jQ2J5EeiekeDAFMNYSP3zZB0LcUuFUNzDkbfcAVsqSoEOlRV-OwNdbTGCJXEmrO8eAjB0p0DNCxK5x88RgZqqmEq8GkKDNrSecxNWAhrHgzpaXjwyc01PFapCtc7Jv8DjX5eD2h9LAk/s200/dunn.jpeg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5266935091801983186" /></a>Kyle Bobby Dunn's intimate splice of acoustic performance with electronic sounds makes for an exfoliating scrub of an album, unctuous but studded with a miasma of abrasive particles that challenge the ear. His approach amounts to an exceptionally clear-eyed analysis of note frequencies and acoustics. It's altogether possible to be simply charmed by the restrained swells and tinkles of his considered soundworld. Nonetheless, the piano's asymmetrical runs and smears, and the finely crafted and diverse droning strings have a kind of subdued but no less effective experimental barbarism about them. The layered violin sounds on "Miranda Rights" creates an excruciating palimpsest of melancholy lyricism. This amounts to an immediate moment amidst an otherwise stylistically shifting music that articulates and emphasizes a number of the levels of gestural tradition found in the realms of modern composition, ambient, and electro-acoustic improvisation. "Sedentary I" is about the various angles and edges that catch and momentarily flicker against the grubbed and faded atmosphere. But especially in the later portions of the album, Dunn seems more of a composer; his eye leaning toward broad brushstrokes and melodic lines that wrinkle and pucker within the texture and curvatures of each piece. These works are thematic—in fact, in some places they are full of cinematic expanse and tension—but otherwise free in every way. The recording sessions and layering of which this effort is comprised took place over the span of several years, yet presented here Dunn's beautiful time, feel and touch seem flowing and undiminished. <span style="font-weight:bold;">MAX SCHAEFER</span> • <a href="http://www.sedimental.com">www.sedimental.com</a><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhqJv69OlHumITReoRkasUol0I-m_wU7uzTCSB_qN6yJlc2O3RZdY1YXJIZiYjXVG-ODpqngKs7A7BPGFmwVewO80O8vSCtRxJ4ReWr4UP-BAwJD2H1PmV9Vu7saIREhoQcewAb8EjVN5I/s1600-h/LP019+front+panel.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 200px; height: 179px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhqJv69OlHumITReoRkasUol0I-m_wU7uzTCSB_qN6yJlc2O3RZdY1YXJIZiYjXVG-ODpqngKs7A7BPGFmwVewO80O8vSCtRxJ4ReWr4UP-BAwJD2H1PmV9Vu7saIREhoQcewAb8EjVN5I/s200/LP019+front+panel.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5266937545409705074" /></a>Rutger Zuydervelt seems to be going for some kind of record with the sheer volume of his Machinefabriek project's output over '07-'08. Whether solo or in collaboration, though, for the most part it’s been pretty much quality assured, his stock-in-trade a variety of DSP-squished tones pressed into service of post-rock progressions marking him out as one of the main torch-bearers of a post-Fennesz guitar generation. <span style="font-style:italic;">Oahu</span>, a communion with experimental veteran Frans de Waard—of Kapotte Muziek, Beequeen and Goem, here in Freiband guise—consists in a pair of extended re-toolings of a one-minute Hawaiian slack-key guitar piece. Sliced up into half-minute segments, shuttled back and forth over a prolonged period, edited and finalised, two 20-minute pieces spewed forth. “Oahu 2”, Freiband’s offering, is a cold draughty and forbidding trip through bilious fogbanks, an unlovely exercise with a certain dirty ambient appeal. No disrespect to de Waard, who has been a sterling, and unsung, labourer at the experimental music culture-face for well over a decade, but in some parts noise annoys, in others a twitchiness attends the eventlessness. On “Oahu 3”, a more (however obliquely) melodic Machinefabriek is more targeted, the sounds both more faithful to source while being wrought into more distinct and diverting mutations with signature DiSsruPts, low-end vapours, and high-end detail. Overall, though, <span style="font-style:italic;">Oahu</span> feels like a minor work of "interesting" but non-essential soundscaping, particularly when placed against the best of both of their previous separately conducted explorations. <span style="font-weight:bold;">ALAN LOCKETT</span> • <a href="http://www.low-point.com">www.low-point.com</a> <br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiRRsyHg_gHC2Kv-5oqrxAnqE4q7k-lXUF_0fH1t3MBYAOzEH81YPHfbwUz3anEIwl_BU_uMZV-HV9cnZsoWdy3ddsR5246F6sYvvDNFar3vXdNIZaQuQ8k2_E4KeU2mpnXV5J9Tm1hRcs/s1600-h/nilshelstrom_anothermomentforthememory_CD.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 85px; height: 85px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiRRsyHg_gHC2Kv-5oqrxAnqE4q7k-lXUF_0fH1t3MBYAOzEH81YPHfbwUz3anEIwl_BU_uMZV-HV9cnZsoWdy3ddsR5246F6sYvvDNFar3vXdNIZaQuQ8k2_E4KeU2mpnXV5J9Tm1hRcs/s200/nilshelstrom_anothermomentforthememory_CD.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5266940688265911762" /></a>Seeking background bumph on the barely heard of Irish drone musician Nils Helstrom led to a Myspace page announcing his presence with the doleful signature “chambers of deepening grey.” A list of influences revealed a larger pattern: names associated with late- and post-classical Nordic minimalism (Arvo Part, Johann Johannson, Deathprod) and Kranky’s spatial electronic soundscaping (Gregg Kowalsky, SotL, Tim Hecker, Christopher Bissonnette), consort with classical minimalism (Adams, Glass, Reich), and (post)modern soundtrack (Clint Mansell, Cliff Martinez). A pretty good map of Helstrom’s ambit of operations on <span style="font-style:italic;">Another Moment for the Memory</span>, though Helstrom displays little interest in harmony other than the accidental in its seven ambiguous but involving sheets of shimmering drone-basing. At times cavernously expansive, but mostly an affair of fade-to-grey minimalism, there are traces of tonal consonance on certain tracks. The likes of “A Stranger To Myself”, might once have been a beautiful lulling lilt, but its euphony is all but effaced by Helstrom’s processing disintegrations. The artist prefers to enshroud any latent musicality in his material in shadows and fog. Mute hummings, buzzing modulations and the vapourtrails of overdriven signal processing obscure all but the most muted of melodies enfolded within these timestretched swells of whir and rumble. More often than not Helstrom sneaks around sonic spaces documented by the Monos, Mirror and Twenty Hertz collective, drawing drapes of dirty velvet over the forlorn figures barely animating its spooked nonplace. <span style="font-weight:bold;">ALAN LOCKETT</span> • <a href="http://www.electricrequiems.com">www.electricrequiems.com</a><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhbEKdowdE4o0wZG4PoxnCsnkKum56yybq_mzPsGRLV-5-9n1-A_S1wmcMgUHsDk0pMCQ4dtE_ZKvJ0rEIAyTaGDpy-ILXsvkVJl7TOEPIDXjASsR_kCBwp1j7m2fAOkaUX_C9-EKBnRAo/s1600-h/i_am_seamonster01.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 200px; height: 200px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhbEKdowdE4o0wZG4PoxnCsnkKum56yybq_mzPsGRLV-5-9n1-A_S1wmcMgUHsDk0pMCQ4dtE_ZKvJ0rEIAyTaGDpy-ILXsvkVJl7TOEPIDXjASsR_kCBwp1j7m2fAOkaUX_C9-EKBnRAo/s200/i_am_seamonster01.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5266937357306655778" /></a>Next an earth-shaking little release from new-ish French imprint Basses Frequences whose ltd. ed. CDRs come niftily housed in metal boxes—thankfully not of the insidious type that slowly eviscerate their spindle-impaled occupant. I Am Seamonster lives up to his offbeat name, at least on the chiming wall of blur that is <span style="font-style:italic;">Nebulum</span>. Taylor Holdgraf, for I Am Seamonster is he, shuns the dank low-end of doom and shirks the dazzling high-end of ethereal, occupying indeterminate ground, one foot in the Fennesz/Hecker camp, the other Jeck-ing out Mathieu’s <span style="font-style:italic;">Radioland</span> motions, maybe looking back at Young’s Theater of Eternal Music. Chronostasis abounds, albeit with a teeming micro-movement inside. It’s as if a cupboardful of trapped pop song harmonics were opened up and let out, scrunched-up after years of enclosure, and IAS were seeking to stretch and pull and smooth their faded and streaked contours into newly sonorous life. The tones mingle and achieve coherence only to lose focus and descend into a churning vortex of vibrant sub-forms. It's drone, Jim, but not as we know it. Companion piece “Constellatrix” crawls out from a different cupboard of abandonment, though. As bleakly cheerless as “Nebulum” is coruscatingly euphoric, it creeps and seeps at the edges of sentience, like the last trails of feedback from an amplifier long since deserted, or the ghosts of decayed returns captured in an old echo unit, sound and fury subtracted, signifying...who knows? Like a midnight walk through an evacuated factory still spectrally inhabited with the ghosts of dead machinery and lost souls. This is hardcoredrift, an engrossing little number all round. <span style="font-weight:bold;">ALAN LOCKETT</span> • <a href="http://www.bassesfrequences.org">www.bassesfrequences.org</a><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEifBwR8eW9Y68xLRO38uza7OJyGPxeA1PNgGI-4U6EpWwvIwn-dz53PfkK4L4c4NwUD1BnBtzFzVlj073aIR1ZKSRd97zZ4ceSoOkguyCHtgBjMy5m19IU59d7wK6occzw6BORZmvfNIZU/s1600-h/vista.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 200px; height: 176px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEifBwR8eW9Y68xLRO38uza7OJyGPxeA1PNgGI-4U6EpWwvIwn-dz53PfkK4L4c4NwUD1BnBtzFzVlj073aIR1ZKSRd97zZ4ceSoOkguyCHtgBjMy5m19IU59d7wK6occzw6BORZmvfNIZU/s200/vista.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5266934919521838002" /></a>The cross-hatching of field recordings from the town of Somerville, the Alps and Zurich Lake found on Jason Kahn and Asher’s collaboration <span style="font-style:italic;">Vista</span> interrupts the stupor of lucidity and momentarily reawakens an oceanic feeling for the world and its far-flung extremities. The recording is indeterminate by reason of its fundamental structure. The two sound-worlds interrelate without fusing or forming a unity; the mechanical rooms and generators of Somerville amass and give rise to a resistance and a sense of dimension of material space within and against the wind and water sounds from Kahn. Vista is thus elemental, physical, yet also otherworldly, in fact, more so than anything one is likely to find in the back-catalogue of either artist, straining as it often does to frame a certain spectral presence. Consisting of a single forty-five minute composition, the work begins in a state of liquid insubstantiality, before being broken up and veering off into time-shifts. A grimy generator thrum is set to some rich sonic mush and a mechanical pulse that incrementally multiplies in density. All of these elements fold back and entwine themselves chokingly around a sound (water beating up against a rock?) that is both strangely muffled and claustrophobic. What at first ripples and rises darkly as if through obscured glass, near the end of the album is brutally, unforgivingly and starkly illuminated and, for all that—or, rather, because of it—oddly foreign and distant. As an ending, its thus more a dissolution than a conclusion, and a surprisingly effective one at that. In between these two points, the work follows a steady, consistent and yet exploratory path—constructing well formed telluric landmarks and branching off into a number of directions, thereby evoking geometric attributes constitutive of material space. <span style="font-weight:bold;">MAX SCHAEFER</span> • <a href="http://www.and-oar.org">www.and-oar.org</a><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiR3e3GTNLN1Kek7iOCgYTXQ_WGoQ5538-jpeD24RQy_fZnCRv567Xmmv7DyCVP93z046rKqMTMDyaTK2PSkEDQEoljwwbYKOxpnAdqIqgS76dLs5dkI2iVPeuB-nldtv2q63MtWI9YZC4/s1600-h/LULL+Cover.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 200px; height: 179px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiR3e3GTNLN1Kek7iOCgYTXQ_WGoQ5538-jpeD24RQy_fZnCRv567Xmmv7DyCVP93z046rKqMTMDyaTK2PSkEDQEoljwwbYKOxpnAdqIqgS76dLs5dkI2iVPeuB-nldtv2q63MtWI9YZC4/s200/LULL+Cover.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5267153419185560770" /></a>By now Mick Harris has achieved a kind of apotheosis, occupying a hallowed place in the Dark Drone Annals, alongside, if with a slightly lower stature, the likes of Lustmord and Thomas Köner. These last-mentioned were the founders of the isolationist creed that arose from a ferment of industrial-ambient and dark-drone activity which Harris did much to carry forward in the mid-90s. Harris had a flair for the desolate and voidoid fuelled by a harsh audio-sensibility forged in the fire of Napalm Death. What had been less clear till then was a certain prowess in sound grabbing and scaping that drew the listener into the abyss without drowning them, most notably on 1994's isolationist classic, <span style="font-style:italic;">Cold Summer</span>. <span style="font-style:italic;">Like A Slow River</span>, not surprisingly, finds Lull still documenting similar psychogeography, as atonal murmur and reverberant wheeze consort with currents beneath the surface. For all its relentless dronanism and slab-like sonority, Lull’s minimal movements are fully felt in slow falls inward into abyssal depths. Lull charts a tonal topography bleakly remote from harmonic referents across five variations on a theme of sickly sub-bass slithers and queasy mid-range slivers, configuring sounding sources into varying modulations and vibrations, shifting cadence and timbre. <span style="font-style:italic;">Like A Slow River</span> will fall, out of categorical imperative, into that black hole facilely labelled "dark ambient" into which much disappears from view, pulled down into lumpen-homogeneity by association. The Lull aesthetic might more accurately be seen, though, as a radical redraft of 80s/90s industrial power electronics with noise reduction on, allowing expression to subtler textural resonances of signal. However designated, Lull’s variation on a pessimist-humanist enviro-futureshock theme joins those from Rapoon, Oophoi, and GM curator himself, Netherworld, as an entirely congruent addition. <span style="font-weight:bold;">ALAN LOCKETT</span> • <a href="http://www.glacialmovements.com">www.glacialmovements.com</a> <br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgVFYt4H0cthdTjiXrJYDnhP9s7lfindPltmluGS1AEQsTJ8nRmw-AxRdA290SvMAXpUpl6SpxfK8Da_JAQ2IxGBQhHBRBlAUWPrHs4EJqXoKnFJJ_nXt5K8h2upof9pSiawQQYg6oDzr4/s1600-h/int031.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 200px; height: 200px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgVFYt4H0cthdTjiXrJYDnhP9s7lfindPltmluGS1AEQsTJ8nRmw-AxRdA290SvMAXpUpl6SpxfK8Da_JAQ2IxGBQhHBRBlAUWPrHs4EJqXoKnFJJ_nXt5K8h2upof9pSiawQQYg6oDzr4/s200/int031.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5266932977850164946" /></a>Lionel Marchetti plays with an experience of Hatali and Atseli—an Ancient Greek ritual revolving around an exchange of eyes—on this collaboration with vocalist Seijiro Murayama. As though a kind of Cerebus of its own, <span style="font-style:italic;">Hatali Atseli</span> has a head for musique concrete, improvisation, and documentary recording. There is nothing congealed about certain stretches of time. As perpetual emanations, the breath of events in these places travel in material waves, calm but alive. Periodically, though, Marchetti will interject, fixing here and there certain lines of force in the form of hooting woodwinds and percussion or else ostracizing certain scrapes and rustles and leaving the proceedings to sound ominously threadbare. At times these movements amount to continuations or accentuation's more than real invasions. Hence one expects Marchetti does indeed maintain a fairly faithful experience of Ancient Greek ritual. There is also a kind of raising of the stakes going on, however, especially in Murayama's banshee wails and warped animal sounds. With the harmonization of Marchetti's fluttery gestures and Murayama's occasional—and somewhat distressing—returns to the dark night of animality, the proceedings are raised to a theatrical level, making this disc a manifold expression that incites one to respond in a variety of ways. <span style="font-weight:bold;">MAX SCHAEFER</span> • <a href="http://www.brainwashed.com/intransitive/">www.brainwashed.com/intransitive/</a><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjj-aF-yHHLdnFagN3H7jcgAtBOFYQW7YpRINnZZcPZRGEUEIJtdsxqZGjgaS-qS_9xRZXqKI2vENLgDc3_VYbMiSVA4iHEQVoUclJ-wz0pCuWlAof9pFbYpa1TBihpSeC0Hfo4z8WxnN8/s1600-h/ecllipses.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 200px; height: 176px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjj-aF-yHHLdnFagN3H7jcgAtBOFYQW7YpRINnZZcPZRGEUEIJtdsxqZGjgaS-qS_9xRZXqKI2vENLgDc3_VYbMiSVA4iHEQVoUclJ-wz0pCuWlAof9pFbYpa1TBihpSeC0Hfo4z8WxnN8/s200/ecllipses.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5266934756893179378" /></a>Seth Nehil and Matt Marble are keen on subverting musical flow and yet they rarely seem any less alive to the situation. In fact, on account of their peculiar method, the opposite proves to be the case: the positive presence of <span style="font-style:italic;">Ecllipses</span> is structured by a series of elliptical movements around an assortment of micro-temporal cut-outs. It's these very breaches and gaps that ultimately keep the resulting music both constantly moving and yet structured. Owing to this process, and the fact that at first the sounds seem to be issuing from fragmented and unrelated harmonic and rhythmic spaces, they have a tendency to seem somewhat bold and harsh. That being said, it's actually anything but simple messy soldering and abstruse perversion of electricity. The two demonstrate themselves to be exceptionally disciplined and they never seek assistance from outside their own internal necessities. Intervaled silences penetrate a low ground swell on "Skully", transforming an otherwise hypnotic ambience into a swirling, insistent and centreless piece. So too with "Flock", metallic percussion rattles like the links of a chain uncoiling and strings pointedly trickle around a few high end notes, foraging, amidst magnetic fluctuations, shortwave demodulations and spiraling squeals, for a melodic opening that is never allowed to quite take form. From here the pieces widen into a stately panorama of obscure and half-submerged gestures. By virtue of contrast, in these larger spaces of curved-wall acoustics, coated with fizzling drones, the tiny textural striations and other such open-ended masses of miniscule events are all the more beguiling, giving off a glimpse of the immensity and near emptiness of space. <span style="font-weight:bold;">MAX SCHAEFER</span> • <a href="http://www.and-oar.org">www.and-oar.org</a><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiviws8MVgjb6sBTPviLXPEtonDm_SulwCx0Y3XWLTQEcSVKtK_8EPwE9Bskqb0-Y-b6-kH4gZEHKBZRtbt92oMQEHYh7_WL5u-nhRqO9nmoRyYDHdYmOoA6RD5o3vvHvYLUZxU9MXWdlE/s1600-h/sawako.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 200px; height: 179px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiviws8MVgjb6sBTPviLXPEtonDm_SulwCx0Y3XWLTQEcSVKtK_8EPwE9Bskqb0-Y-b6-kH4gZEHKBZRtbt92oMQEHYh7_WL5u-nhRqO9nmoRyYDHdYmOoA6RD5o3vvHvYLUZxU9MXWdlE/s200/sawako.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5266934560438886258" /></a>Microsound hasn’t exactly been a magnet drawing female artists in to its orbit, but exposure to Sawako’s provocative primrose apothecaries ought to change that in a heartbeat. It’s not necessarily an act of gender that makes her delicately-phrased tendrils of sound so luminous; coupled with a Zen-like approach to sound design and an obvious expertise blurring the acoustic and electronic interface, Sawako’s artistic abilities are anything but passive. Immersive, yes, yet it’s key to note that her works seek to engage rather than dissipate the attention of anyone expecting a parade of facile ambient non-entities to draw themselves across the speaker fabric. Her previous 12k outing, 2005’s <span style="font-style:italic;">Hum</span>, wasn’t any less strange and wonderfully made than <span style="font-style:italic;">Bitter Sweet</span>, but time has enabled Sawako to hone her drone craftsmanship beyond mere wafting tidal pools of sound. Truth be told, labeling her music with such terms as “drone” and “microsound” is ambiguous at best, foolhardy at worst. No doubt a piece such as “Looped Labyrinth, Decayed Voice” (the disc’s crown jewel) displays all the hallmarks—gently oscillating whirls, clipped bird twitters amidst the flapping of little wings, time standing virtually motionless as tones circle a widening black hole—a soundscape seemingly trapped in stasis yet robust with minute objects scurrying at the edges. At once mysterious and undeniably beautiful, it is about as near a “romantic” ideal as dronework could be. Lusher still is “Wind Shower Particle,” wherein Sawako’s parsed electronics blossom amongst an moist undergrowth of vine-covered guitars. Across the over nine-minute “Hugbug,” odd burbles and purring grumblings etch jagged lines throughout a refracted surface of Eliane Radigue-like summer-haze loops; gauzy and subtly eerie, it recalls nothing less than spans of orange twilight sun parting the branches of dewy forest, anticipating the biting evening air. Sawako isn’t shy of earthly constraints, either — introducing lovely refrains of processed cello and violin on “Utouto” lends an acoustic serenity to such becalming laptop environs, a “reciprocess” that draws out her onkyo roots in suitably demonstrative fashion. Far from a mere minimalist exercise, both this piece and the closing two (“Tsubomi, Saku”, and “A Last Next”) reinvent “new age” for the software set, elegant dritfworks unifying the artist’s pre-eminent dichotomies into a wonderfully melancholic whole. <span style="font-weight:bold;">DARREN BERGSTEIN</span> • <a href="http://www.12k.com">www.12k.com</a><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhwovzHsAauvCKuwYyrrwU48SDhHM49LyCOmi76UrrG7gLVtkYVOfErpexJpCH9QoSFyVESH1xy8oJoEwKLea4wWdWkXHTAupIqqZX1NyWMICOe-zzdOkf_5Icnt1D90S2Lmfype0IcXEQ/s1600-h/int030.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 200px; height: 200px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhwovzHsAauvCKuwYyrrwU48SDhHM49LyCOmi76UrrG7gLVtkYVOfErpexJpCH9QoSFyVESH1xy8oJoEwKLea4wWdWkXHTAupIqqZX1NyWMICOe-zzdOkf_5Icnt1D90S2Lmfype0IcXEQ/s200/int030.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5266932035773000866" /></a><span style="font-style:italic;">Bond Inlets</span> clothes itself in the minimum of matter necessary for its communication. One senses it is put together by design, that in it significance precedes and transforms the existence of the field recordings. But, at the same time, there is an active dialogue between the two, a sort of circular causality in which the terms are rendered indistinct and through which the work acquires a quasi-natural aura and manner of unfolding. The feebleness of Howard Stelzer's cassette-tape technology in its consternation before nocturnal insects, crackling firewood, and all manner of voices is palpable; and the substance of its memory hangs like weak thread in the yawning maw of Stelzer's sludgy, galloping drones. Stelzer's drones come in waves, long and slow, while the other gestures are bitty, percussive and often shrill, and are given salient structural impetus by their silent framing. As a structural system, this has real depth, and it lends itself well to observation as one approaches it from different points of view. The work continues to open out structurally as it moves along, and the reduced density brought about as a result allows the constituents of the music to come into individual focus. When this happens, a haggard melancholy is all pervasive; in the fleeting half-melodies, the warm though foreboding bass drones, and the fetishistic hiss—all so many residues of a living whirlwind that devours the darkness. <span style="font-weight:bold;">MAX SCHAEFER</span> • <a href="http://www.brainwashed.com/intransitive">www.brainwashed.com/intransitive</a><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgXwUpuDD0kWg3JYdxTaDV8fmtKKzTob4dbBs9LDHTstWXoqz7C4DN5-L27a_K9aML35QDB1ZADXUZewA4h9gWaOpnSVsw03fWtglJBOOQ7NZzSWaBTCwHA6EIWeNT5gEb6B0RuHPV_Gxg/s1600-h/do033_300.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 200px; height: 186px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgXwUpuDD0kWg3JYdxTaDV8fmtKKzTob4dbBs9LDHTstWXoqz7C4DN5-L27a_K9aML35QDB1ZADXUZewA4h9gWaOpnSVsw03fWtglJBOOQ7NZzSWaBTCwHA6EIWeNT5gEb6B0RuHPV_Gxg/s200/do033_300.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5266939066990319218" /></a>Anthony Paul Kerby (APK), familiar to ambient-space adepts from his projects under the banner of The Circular Ruins, Lammergeyer, and Nunc Stans, here renews his file-exchange tryst with Robert Davies, himself with a number of accomplished DataObscura releases under his belt, to follow up their debut, <span style="font-style:italic;">Slow Promises</span>. Davies’ euphonic take on ambient drone theory finds a compatible foil in APK. On such tracks as "The Four Corners of Night", the knowledge base of the latter’s spacemusic and EM schooling are well in evidence in embroidering around the former’s drone-deliveries which become fertile ground-level backdrops to spindles of sinewy synth figures. APK likes to steep his tonal material in a solution of environmental infusions so they end up with a filmy smearage, bringing out a teeming inner life of particulate detail. Lost is, overall, possessed of a brooding beauty and grainy grandeur, its soundings more electronic than Alio Die, less etherial than Oophoi, less devotional than Mathias Grassow, while sharing something of the sonorous spirit of all of the above. And with this second work, The Winterhouse cement their credentials in sonic articulations of imaginary place, as creators of meditative yet resonant loci of repose and reflection, turning to loss and isolation. Closing piece, "Clearing", shows the pair are capable of surprising mood shifts, as the dominant doleful tenor of the preceding movements is dispelled, clouds lifting in gorgeous elegiac aperture. This data may be Obscura but its muted melancholy and existential poesis feel close to home. <span style="font-weight:bold;">ALAN LOCKETT</span> • <a href="http://www.dataobscura.com">www.dataobscura.com</a>Darren Bergstein (Editor/Publisher)http://www.blogger.com/profile/03979361482585766858noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4680931152558950057.post-69664973883020891542008-10-30T14:39:00.033-04:002008-10-30T22:58:40.795-04:00Installment 21 / Hypnos label roundup<span style="font-weight:bold;">AUSTERE Solyaris <br />STEVE BRAND Bridge to Nowhere<br />DARKENED SOUL Bathys<br />M. GRIFFIN Fabrications<br />SANS SERIF Tones for LaMonte<br />SAUL STOKES Villa Galaxia<br />VARIOUS Message from a Subatomic World<br />VARIOUS Sounds of a Universe Overheard</span><br /><br />America’s premier ambient label’s been churning releases out at fairly regular intervals in 2008, the better to continue it’s burgeoning rep while playing host to artists of varying levels of notoriety. In these days of the now ubiquitous CDR and virtually 24-hour downloading, when ambient music (and all related subgenres) can be had for a mere pittance (or a mere click of the mouse), it’s comforting to know that Hypnos and its founder Mike Griffin have stayed the course despite weathering sea changes in the marketplace and its insatiable audience. The Hypnos “ideal” has altered little in its twelve-year lifespan, but Griffin and Co. do on occasion tweak the model; this year’s offerings cross a swathe of genre, and have introduced some well-acknowledged, if “underground”, recruits to the imprint’s fraternity.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjqr0y_TvGdVQBXM_xHBQondxNImW3t-JQZCT91CeBcLp4rXllCCJ2y-ef5Og9yj_QxECCBzBtEvT8d6WM9MdKSX7rX2eCZLk-22yGETimma1bvNvkHOVJaHw1ulL83ZZp62HyNC3Mlf8g/s1600-h/austere.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 200px; height: 200px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjqr0y_TvGdVQBXM_xHBQondxNImW3t-JQZCT91CeBcLp4rXllCCJ2y-ef5Og9yj_QxECCBzBtEvT8d6WM9MdKSX7rX2eCZLk-22yGETimma1bvNvkHOVJaHw1ulL83ZZp62HyNC3Mlf8g/s200/austere.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5263029375259436354" /></a>Judging by <span style="font-style:italic;">Solyaris</span>, Portland, Oregon’s Austere couldn’t have picked a better name for their recording identity, although the Pacific Northwest collective do categorically mix it up if you’ve been paying attention to their back catalog pre-Hypnos. I must admit some trepidation regarding artists choosing “site”-specific monikers—it would be an understatement to say that branding oneself Minimal or Technorock might muddy the pudding, as it were—dispelling that sense of mystery and “myth”, unwittingly painting themselves into a corner. This is indeed the case on <span style="font-style:italic;">Solyaris</span>, but thankfully the collective pull off their metaphorical hat trick in a (subtle) blaze of pragmatic glory. Apparently neither in the hollow vacuum of space nor the dimly-lit corners of our psyches can anyone hear us dream—consider that during the opening 15 minutes of “Seraphim”, where rising tones ache and shimmer, where errant corpuscles of sound occasionally interrupt the piece’s flowing circulatory system. Or partake of the massive near 40-minute trawl that is “Nictitate”, as heated moogs unspool threads of humid mist, envelopes are tightened, filters open and close like the rusting apertures of a gargantuan space freighter, and unidentifiable noises caress the emptiness. Little compositional momentum emerges; rather, a chain of irregularly dispersed micro-events is what keeps so much articulated tension coiling along the event horizon of the piece's collapsar. Positioned along axes of darkly similar persuasions—alum from Cyclic Law, Steve Roach’s <span style="font-style:italic;">The Magnificent Void</span>, Sleep Research Facility—<span style="font-style:italic;">Solyaris</span> doesn’t reinvent the drone aesthetic as much as reap its attenuated whirlwind.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiL8RgK9CzPpOs27Fs38BAeR-FYY9hbx8EvbLtxrz1u5P1CdYzZ7nLuVXtp0SoeZ0wE9gjrw9dkIJQBLechn77JvVRw5oT3GiDzGIDDTKBSBxnlwtE1KQbYgoz4M2oUrW-PkqZm8i5LrQM/s1600-h/griffin.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 200px; height: 200px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiL8RgK9CzPpOs27Fs38BAeR-FYY9hbx8EvbLtxrz1u5P1CdYzZ7nLuVXtp0SoeZ0wE9gjrw9dkIJQBLechn77JvVRw5oT3GiDzGIDDTKBSBxnlwtE1KQbYgoz4M2oUrW-PkqZm8i5LrQM/s200/griffin.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5263029532221666242" /></a>If its gritty, grotty, granulated textures are anything to go by, Hypnos founder Griffin’s own long-in-the-tooth <span style="font-style:italic;">Fabrications</span>, the follow-up of sorts to 1997’s <span style="font-style:italic;">Sudden Dark</span>, hasn’t squandered its evolutionary arc. At least he puts his money where his mouth/sound is—virtually embodying the Hypnos gestalt, Griffin massages, coaxes, and exacts all manners of eerie sonic turbulence from natural, neé acoustic, sources. Other than signal processing, Griffin has abandoned “traditional” methods of aural mutation and frequency daubing in the realization of six elusive, often incorporeal, environments. Cliché is abandoned, too: rather than allowing the natural ebb and flow of liquids to generate tension, Griffin’s samples of ocean and waterfall on “Water is Silver” instead rubs its mercurial tide up against a ballast of corroded iron stirred within cloudbanks of disinterred reverb. Navigating us and his sounds through tunnels barnacled and wind-etched, Griffin’s fragmentary snapshots, depixellated, the emulsion bleached and stretched taut, require his nimble direction, and our fertile imaginations, to hammer them into tangible, if fleeting, shapes. A somnolent piece of hauntology such as “Devise” appears as if wrenched from a carnival of souls, its disembodied voices caught in EVP flux, just out of reach and trapped between dimensions thick with echo and (reci)process. As you may now glean, Griffin’s tactile soundscapes subvert the ambient model in no uncertain terms. He achieves a fitful balance between poles, neither Lull-ing his audience to sleep nor making them reCoil in abject terror, though exposed to the final cumulative 22 minutes that is “Sky is Glass Lit”—rife with a veritable catalog of extrasensory percolations, altering tableau, and ghost cadences—it’s clear Griffin’s aural fictions are the stuff of daymares rather than nightdreams, a threnody of compelling, edgy, anxious grimbience with precious few parallels.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgltMgJGOe_SPpUPTUEAt5QJW3Q0ioTsB2J56zi0tg6vNIvri-MljGw1UukN-foO3qizTAEdYh0HnhyB5opxdqy9YdYxSv2pg2GlLthlVtm2OLBDNmPGw8bR49RGOX4aSqSVuvB4b-xTPs/s1600-h/stokes.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 200px; height: 200px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgltMgJGOe_SPpUPTUEAt5QJW3Q0ioTsB2J56zi0tg6vNIvri-MljGw1UukN-foO3qizTAEdYh0HnhyB5opxdqy9YdYxSv2pg2GlLthlVtm2OLBDNmPGw8bR49RGOX4aSqSVuvB4b-xTPs/s200/stokes.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5263029686648953170" /></a>With <span style="font-style:italic;">Villa Galaxia</span>, Saul Stokes has realized the most playful recording of his career: springy in step and lactating purple, it even mischievously tugs at the fringes of (god help us) “electropop”. But don’t get too alarmed: this is a marvelously vibrant, engaging work of contemporary electronica that finds Stokes charting unexplored territory with his usual idiosyncratic gusto. Outerspace music, rendering the covers of antiquarian sci-fi mags <span style="font-style:italic;">Astounding</span> and <span style="font-style:italic;">Fantastic</span> in glorious harmonicolor, Stokes’s sonic bric-a-brac would find favor from those whose collections sport Bill Nelson as well as early Morr sides and magic fealties long ago forged by IDMistic platterpusses Aphex Twin or Bochum Welt. But Stokes is a true original, a savvy composer who refuses to merely tweak paradigms, boost plug-in ratios or jump to Warp nine with his controls locked to the heart of the sun. The sheer joviality of this recording is impossible to shake—like the spaceage art nouveau so relished by his colleague, Stokes goes back to the future encumbered in a cozy full Nelson. Other folks subconsciously flavor the stew as well: “Hello Radar” works Mouse on Mars rubberband rhythm-snaps into a gaseous Stokes configuration that pops and bubbles like the most exotic Stereolab experiments. “Vapor Trails” revels wholeheartedly in its old-school moog refrains and bleep coagulant. “Eta Car Is a Massive Star” (Stokes' gift for titular designation improves on each successive recording like a fine vintage) explodes in a frenzy of jocular snares, boiling beaker beeps and candystriped synths. And the beat/tone clusters perambulating through “Interrupted by Time” mandates tripping to the moon on (synthetic) gossamer wings, the artist smitten by his digital crushes, noises that fizz, fuzz, and fan out in equal measure, charged by headspinning rhythms agog in zero gravity. Quark strangeness and charm, Stoked by stardust.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhDcV4vi_Qyuv7ICCIFdTuBhsEN8XKxbRcoYJmkmPkH4jSYcyDtBISkSImLNKNe4cju_PvixKffH781tpIWTjjn63CWECDEe_1tVbbvFCQvXfBYNrHQfTklLMc_a9U_v-tomsMWk6enAqU/s1600-h/messages.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 200px; height: 200px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhDcV4vi_Qyuv7ICCIFdTuBhsEN8XKxbRcoYJmkmPkH4jSYcyDtBISkSImLNKNe4cju_PvixKffH781tpIWTjjn63CWECDEe_1tVbbvFCQvXfBYNrHQfTklLMc_a9U_v-tomsMWk6enAqU/s200/messages.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5263030372631411474" /></a>A Hypnos compilation usually acts more as a statement of intent than a simple summing-up (or label stopgap between releases), and the latest to come down the pike are two of a perfect pair. Both <span style="font-style:italic;">Message from a Subatomic World</span> and its companion <span style="font-style:italic;">Sounds of a Universe Overheard</span> are inherently “ambient” in nature and ambition, but what distinguishes them from any of a hundred other doppelgangers is their ability to morph between sense and sensibility, sharing common stylistic ground yet unfearful of exposing what lies beneath the obvious strata. Handpicked and meticulously programmed by label maven Griffin, each artist presides over their own hard-won turf so that despite varying opinions regarding each collection’s value <span style="font-style:italic;">in toto</span>, they're both worthy of commanding wet skin and curious eye. Of the two, desolation angels help to deliver many an agile <span style="font-style:italic;">Message</span> in a bottle. Austere’s “Crystil” invents a drone that isn’t so much fragile as close to the edge, lo-end rumbles swelling under spectral choirs and atmospheric distortions. Relapxych.O trades in his deepdub aquatics for the frosted wineglass-rubbed starkness of “Distant Radiance.” Malignant Records signee Phaenon goes straight to the heart of darkness, reincarnating Lovecraftian gods on “Quantum Silence”, while ex-pat Cyclic Law-yer Svartsinn wrestles with eddies blackest ever black on “Cold But Strong.” <a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhSGXMgUUOm7t1dlqIRVlM2rkW5WNz-gUQ-uWIqVtPIfkDHd_B15EIsQ5FuxQ1t1oFQmsSx34dH3dGasvtQjObSM_Qxo5Kf5CP34cGeLahfBSmcFTkFsDbmGZXtr5xYLWxAyY2dmKpQRBw/s1600-h/sounds.jpg"><img style="float:right; margin:0 0 10px 10px;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 200px; height: 200px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhSGXMgUUOm7t1dlqIRVlM2rkW5WNz-gUQ-uWIqVtPIfkDHd_B15EIsQ5FuxQ1t1oFQmsSx34dH3dGasvtQjObSM_Qxo5Kf5CP34cGeLahfBSmcFTkFsDbmGZXtr5xYLWxAyY2dmKpQRBw/s200/sounds.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5263030522961239826" /></a>Meanwhile, eavesdropping on <span style="font-style:italic;">Sounds of a Universe Overheard</span>, we find contributors experimenting with old-world Teutonic engrams in addition to spatial lucidities. Jonathan Block’s “The Language of Rocks” journeys to the dark side of the moog in pure, beatless Schulzian homage; the miasma exploding out of M. Peck’s “Somna” is a virtual diorama of whirling flora and aggressive fauna that harkens back to mid-period Zoviet France; “Scarecrow” finds Kirk Watson drawing spooky figures from existential ones, shapeshifting odd shimmies, drafts, and buzzes out of a primordial soup of dawn-breached synths; Justin Vanderberg explores his own alien terrain on “Infection,” where near-extinct species nestled in abandoned hollows parse limpid drones that blossom quickly then recede in to the nightsky. The economic diversity spread out over these two worthwhile Hypnos joints is captivating enough to prevent even the busiest mind from wandering. Jump in at any point; the water’s just right.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEimPz5QUiNJrl1sh3mDAJg9mGV6n91eXQ1zwBsHPfnpQK5r4I4L9F8FtCoLRLsVkYryOFLMP19S9rsPcksNdZRCbgjl_xcJsD0QWdILWYkeaoL3u0xOzSX3Ids-hP5WSohn8MZ_0g-PxNU/s1600-h/brand.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 200px; height: 200px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEimPz5QUiNJrl1sh3mDAJg9mGV6n91eXQ1zwBsHPfnpQK5r4I4L9F8FtCoLRLsVkYryOFLMP19S9rsPcksNdZRCbgjl_xcJsD0QWdILWYkeaoL3u0xOzSX3Ids-hP5WSohn8MZ_0g-PxNU/s200/brand.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5263031614741155010" /></a>Recent entries on the label’s CDR imprint Hypnos Secret Sounds are of such vivacity one wonders why owner Griffin didn’t deem them fit for “legit” silverdisc; it’s a pleasure they exist, nonetheless. Making the case for Steve Brand’s credibility is a no-brainer, but more puzzling still is why his profile remains negligible in the deep libraries of serious ambient collectors. Having built up a considerable catalog under both his given surname as well as the more opaque moniker Augur, Brand’s traversed intercontinental soundscaping, digital rainforest raga, <span style="font-style:italic;">au natural</span> acousmatics and abstract experimentation with the greatest of ease. <span style="font-style:italic;">Bridge to Nowhere</span> is scorched savannah ambient, lethargic and lush, breathy and breathless, keenly felt across the two lengthy sojourns spanning the title tracks, where Brand simply allows his balmy drones to expand and contract at will. “Through the Lens of Love” departs from the established norm with some well-ordered gamelan rhythms that brings the artist’s fascination with tribal elderisms to the forefront, but eventually his nest of mbiras and xylophones ultimately become subsumed in the sticky mix. Great stuff.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjErUEOfS2NXA3ixhiVENADjXybBchrmYVLCWvjBP_iMr6t6WaUXWncdyJUJkTowfPtuXwntN2_mc4IqX92n_z3IFTomGcjOyZAgfRPOyBGI5YC7J0aUu7PjVoOL8iDuckyaHqG4D_fFaI/s1600-h/bathys.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 200px; height: 200px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjErUEOfS2NXA3ixhiVENADjXybBchrmYVLCWvjBP_iMr6t6WaUXWncdyJUJkTowfPtuXwntN2_mc4IqX92n_z3IFTomGcjOyZAgfRPOyBGI5YC7J0aUu7PjVoOL8iDuckyaHqG4D_fFaI/s200/bathys.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5263031760607659970" /></a>Mike Soucy, aka Darkened Soul, prefers to dive down 20,000 leagues under the sea in order to float <span style="font-style:italic;">Bathys</span> to the surface. The large-scale impact of his scabrous drones hitting you over the head with blunt force trauma, Soucy designs some inescapably desperate scenarios of quite unsettling natures. Of course, as with most longform musics of such darkly atmospheric stripes, these endlessly shifting tonal wrecks stay for the most part static, which isn’t necessarily irredeemable. Darkened Soul will never be confused with the happy wanderer: the coruscating waves of echo and steel hull collisions of “Ateleiotos Agkareia” has roots sunk in decades-old bastard industrial obfuscants, which supports its clanky <span style="font-style:italic;">sturm und drang</span> with some deeper imagistic heft, and also draws linkage to recent black metal brigadiers who’ve forsaken their guitars for samplers. “Trela” is all about dense vibration, as if a moth’s wings were miked then amplified a hundred-fold, on which caress a storm surge of galvanic rip tides. Things devolve when “Ypexairesi” unfolds its skein of cyclonic noise, oscillating static charges the color and texture of brillo glancing about the surrounding inimical terrain. Soucy doesn’t pull any punches on the closing title track, either; although the previous abrasive gusts are absent, in their stead hammers bang on grimy bulkheads, swap tensile blows with tongs, and occasionally erupt through the relentless and enveloping maelstrom. All told, simple but effective.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgnFJIVckYmZjxvNFR-WmSS0L8NuajYBg7JTtzs_GOFvPVWIwNmlkTlRilVTCYwgfLZNIt2_gyMHVmPhAs_UEJAOj8o2vB4A9h9qgMFfavZZairzeVoOMsXO-HixRhm-ETdgXxUmEmzd2c/s1600-h/sanserif.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 200px; height: 200px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgnFJIVckYmZjxvNFR-WmSS0L8NuajYBg7JTtzs_GOFvPVWIwNmlkTlRilVTCYwgfLZNIt2_gyMHVmPhAs_UEJAOj8o2vB4A9h9qgMFfavZZairzeVoOMsXO-HixRhm-ETdgXxUmEmzd2c/s200/sanserif.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5263031887713440722" /></a><span style="font-style:italic;">Tones for LaMonte</span> is the debut recording by Sans Serif, aka intrepid explorer Forrest Fang, whose affinity for the works of minimalist composer LaMonte Young finds homage in this “one-off” project. Emulating in feel the elongated tropes of his mentor, Fang’s methodology in realizing these discrete, gradually irising sonic pupae was to manipulate the harmonics in “real time” as much as possible and in doing so preserving the natural organic flow of the resultant sound current. It’s about as minimal and threadbare a music as Fang’s ever done, surely the direct antithesis of his prior solo work <span style="font-style:italic;">Gongland</span>, or 2006’s mutually satisfying collaboration with guitarist Carl Weingarten. As is, each of these beams of silvery sonic light are absolute gems, less “classically” organized than Young’s work, stripped of institutionalized polemics and unafraid to dapple in the kind of beauteous harmonics that characterize adjunct recordings such as Roach’s <span style="font-style:italic;">Structures from Silence</span> and a good deal of the work of Eliane Radigue. So the eleven minutes of “Gamma” are delicately nuanced pulsations bending discrete layers of the color spectrum, while the confrontational, dissolving “bell” sounds imbuing “Delta” are less palliating on the ears. Sans anything but deftness of touch and flawless execution, these <span style="font-style:italic;">Tones</span> display a limitless depth of aural profundity. Take notice, LaMonte, and prick up your ears. <span style="font-weight:bold;">DARREN BERGSTEIN</span> • <a href="http://www.hypnos.com">www.hypnos.com</a>Darren Bergstein (Editor/Publisher)http://www.blogger.com/profile/03979361482585766858noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4680931152558950057.post-54293136960297943202008-10-17T10:44:00.015-04:002008-10-17T12:25:49.904-04:00Installment 20<font style="font-weight: bold;">ATMOWORKS / Label Roundup<br /><br />JONATHAN HUGHES Circumflex</font> <font style="font-weight: bold;"><br /></font><font style="font-weight: bold;">EXUVIAE Settling Density</font> <font style="font-weight: bold;"><br />EXUVIAE The White Underneath</font> <font style="font-weight: bold;"><br />IGNEOUS FLAME / ACHROMUS Halo</font> <font style="font-weight: bold;"><br /></font><font style="font-weight: bold;">MARK TAMEA Buried Traktora</font> <font style="font-weight: bold;"><br /></font><font style="font-weight: bold;">RAZZLOG Dark Side of the Mood</font> <font style="font-weight: bold;"><br /></font><font style="font-weight: bold;">STEVE BRAND SoulSpiral</font> <font style="font-weight: bold;"><br /></font><font style="font-weight: bold;">VIR UNIS / DISTURBED EARTH Drawn From the Well</font><br /><br />Back in the ambient mists of 2001 James Johnson joined forces with John Strate-Hootman (Vir Unis) to form AtmoWorks, providing a channel for a plethora of releases from friends and kindred spirits in the atmospheric electronic music field. Full of a sense of mission to facilitate independent artists in releasing music at will free from third-party agenda, their goal was to set up more direct modes for connecting listener with musician. This was achieved in large part via a website which notably offered a download delivery option long before this was de rigueur. Driven by a consciousness of the consumptionist strictures of the established paradigm of marketing, promotion and release, AW sought to offer a more flexible and direct outlet for creative output. Earlier this year, however, it was announced that Johnson had left the enterprise, with new energies being coopted in the form of John Koch-Northrup (better known as AW recording artist Interstitial) and Matt McDonough (aka MjDawn). Recent emissions from the label indicate that this change of personnel has effected something of a refresh, and AW has continued along the lines of its earlier genre pathway, with one or two unexpected and offbeat trajectories being added. Exhibits follow.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgITX8b9jLfnST78MXky9tYqfHYQl2N3f_vf8_LcaIK_BgYbBiPp9wL9lD4ci4KR3XTepVp9M1iQPf9WhBQv6yvRLUR1NIAUXVEmOgv7Rmzd9-NjlijjNNO2-Bb15Spf0ptUNVSnwDqTUUC/s1600-h/awhughes.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgITX8b9jLfnST78MXky9tYqfHYQl2N3f_vf8_LcaIK_BgYbBiPp9wL9lD4ci4KR3XTepVp9M1iQPf9WhBQv6yvRLUR1NIAUXVEmOgv7Rmzd9-NjlijjNNO2-Bb15Spf0ptUNVSnwDqTUUC/s200/awhughes.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5257148169528099058" border="0"></a>Starting off in relatively safe AW territory is Jonathan Hughes, familiar from kindred label The Foundry, through whom he released the moderately acclaimed <font style="font-style: italic;">Trillium</font> and the virtual collaboration project <font style="font-style: italic;">Fluidities</font>. On notes to <font style="font-style: italic;">Circumflex</font>, his AW debut, Hughes professes to enjoy the feelings or images evoked by certain words, significations free-floating from signifiers. Something of this spirit of freeplay is evidenced in the track titles, which are typographical terms, and carried over into the focus on the micro- of design in the music's contours. In addition to his predilection for sound design, Hughes’s love of synthesizers is also apparent and appellant to typical frequenters of AW's portals. But for all that it is an elegant and composed collection, it ultimately lacks a spark of something ineffable to make it ignite. Longest track, “Dieresis”, contains everything that might be called Hughesian, characterised by a dynamic of gentle flickering that channels something of 12k's digital microsonics, combined with draughts drawn from the same well as Saul Stokes’ quirky ‘populist’ approach to electronica. Charming.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjimCky3D76mLKjDclrkN00aOJ9f0-ev1SmDXq3MMtnL2UqqRqTTFsfsSGUVV0cEPmb27Cg4eKX8kYsOJtKY0CHqNEh6QdpxZE_xtTVnHF_DEsJeEvmGjSNPyeQ5KsD2NAqoNwD6lr0HiPb/s1600-h/awresponse.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjimCky3D76mLKjDclrkN00aOJ9f0-ev1SmDXq3MMtnL2UqqRqTTFsfsSGUVV0cEPmb27Cg4eKX8kYsOJtKY0CHqNEh6QdpxZE_xtTVnHF_DEsJeEvmGjSNPyeQ5KsD2NAqoNwD6lr0HiPb/s200/awresponse.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5257148757080759026" border="0"></a>Originally released on AtmoWorks in 2002, <font style="font-style: italic;">Response</font> saw Exuviae cement the guitar+drone+synthesis formula developed over a trio of albums. A set of soundscapes of dense drone-drift and harmonic heft, its atmospheres shifted sinuously from dark (“Liquid Soil Shapes”) to light (“Synthetic Alignment”), often within a track ("Dustfilm Cocoon"), as Brooks Rongstad channeled some of the fluidity of Jeff Pearce’s guitar-scaping with a thicker, earthier edge, redolent of the likes of fellow Great Axescapists such as Jason Sloan and Matt Borghi. Its reissue is timely, signalling Rongstad's Second Coming, his dabblings in doom and post-metal noise projects having served for refresh. Rehydrating the shed skin of his old Exuviae, he now climbs back in to reanimate it through <font style="font-style: italic;">Response's </font>latest incarnation. It dwells at the threshold of altered-state high spacemusic, rather than in the homespun lowlight drone-fields of the likes of Aidan Baker and Peter Wright. For all its situation in neo-ambient and atmospheric space realms, though, the outcome is still fresh and strangely not that far removed from the fuzzy digi-logic of Christian Fennesz without the laptoperative’s glitchy’n’scratchy tropes, allegiance to the drift inside fully pledged, all drone-tone swells and billows oozing forth from the speakers as if glassine or molten. The sprawling "Reaction.Response" is recognisably Roachean, visibly Vir Unis-ian, and maybe a little too close to these artists' spacemusic synthetics for the ungroomed nouveau guitar drone-ophiles. Whatever its alignment, pleasure a-plenty accrues from its swathes of infinite reverb-soaked ebowed-out airy/gaseous/subaquatic texturology. Engrossing.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjXCWSVbiCtBjlzmsNWlu3pQ9ldmPL-lDox_hFmknia3PxrqWP0xTt4ocs1mp5Lzi2MD6ZozTtUh-ssJ6cQfCC7No_Its9esEmIn-QyTpid5WuC1ytxFcOJys2C3N-i019MCf9zVqCFmqkL/s1600-h/awwhite.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjXCWSVbiCtBjlzmsNWlu3pQ9ldmPL-lDox_hFmknia3PxrqWP0xTt4ocs1mp5Lzi2MD6ZozTtUh-ssJ6cQfCC7No_Its9esEmIn-QyTpid5WuC1ytxFcOJys2C3N-i019MCf9zVqCFmqkL/s200/awwhite.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5257148756841473458" border="0"></a>The goodness of <font style="font-style: italic;">Response</font> makes it all the more painful to report that more recent Exuviae work, <font style="font-style: italic;">The White Underneath</font>, is far less immediately listener-gratifying. In fact, there’s little or no attempt at gratification in evidence, other than the self-oriented variety, and much here seems almost to go out of its way to grate. 'Uncompromising' perhaps would be the epithet the artist might choose to use to excuse this confused farrago. In fact, it's described by Rongstad as “experimental”, a signifier by now shorn of any concrete signification, leaving the door open to a multitude of sins. After opening track "Her Familiar", which is recognisably the work of the same artist responsible for <font style="font-style: italic;">Response</font>, only with a more abraded brush daubing from a similar palette, <span style="font-style: italic;">The White Underneath</span> enters into a serious identity crisis from which it never recovers. Remixes by fellow Minnesota artists Datura 1.0, Bunk Data, Signal To Ground, and The Essential compound the prevailing impression of thrown-together incoherence. Unkempt.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjbOLagl0bUWRYJeupjULMAoUXwkJiT4OP_FftgFq-R0VSWYG00hZ2m6aVdG28FK4H2-pmtSmiJbYS_K9hKzB7eTqIgWA3FYKDBaZ0tPHtHBwGFVqdHiTMsSQ5BEns1kiFe3gt8xl31Cpau/s1600-h/awigneous.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjbOLagl0bUWRYJeupjULMAoUXwkJiT4OP_FftgFq-R0VSWYG00hZ2m6aVdG28FK4H2-pmtSmiJbYS_K9hKzB7eTqIgWA3FYKDBaZ0tPHtHBwGFVqdHiTMsSQ5BEns1kiFe3gt8xl31Cpau/s200/awigneous.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5257148756694673346" border="0"></a>Pete Kelly, the man behind Igneous Flame's effects, may hail from Leeds but that’s the nearest his guitar is likely to get to playing leads. No slave to rhythm either, Kelly has unwound his sound into long, evocative drone-based washes and crepuscular tonefloat unmoored from the strictures of its stringy source. <font style="font-style: italic;">HALO</font> is a departure from his previous six albums in being a collaborative affair with Michael Stringer, known to his Mum and Dad as Achromus. Stringer passed on raw compositions and source sounds from a pool of material, with Kelly adding guitar parts, transforming sonorities and re-working overall. Two immersive timbrally exploratory long-form works emerge, vibrant in form and colour, occasionally flirting with industrial gruzz before retreating to a kind of alien pastoral with a mysterious skein. The combination of Achromus’s synth textures and Igneous Flame’s e-bow guitar lines works to conjur up abstracted harmonic shapes, with melodic phrases woven around shape-shifting contours. It’s the kind of sound that gets labelled 'experimental', but at heart it's simply possessed of an appealingly questing spirit for which the phrase ‘dark luminosity’ has been aptly coopted by the artists. Referential mention might be made of Matthew Florianz, the pairing with Achromus’ synth perhaps influencing the overall pull towards that artist’s slow-mo shadow-swirl soundworld. Incantatory.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEifkDE0-rZl4cjfBQXaWvYXmwFPJAn_80xc6VEM8HQYAZKxx_KRQUm2rHTiTxhJ5MgyZJklbvVaaGVh_qXcnBnXpfV8YZPAEqU26qshw81A9SrELjdMXzZCil1Pr1LPZMhcTzxnEgoC45NM/s1600-h/awtamea.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEifkDE0-rZl4cjfBQXaWvYXmwFPJAn_80xc6VEM8HQYAZKxx_KRQUm2rHTiTxhJ5MgyZJklbvVaaGVh_qXcnBnXpfV8YZPAEqU26qshw81A9SrELjdMXzZCil1Pr1LPZMhcTzxnEgoC45NM/s200/awtamea.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5257148755850118434" border="0"></a>Mark Tamea’s <font style="font-style: italic;">Buried Traktora</font> is something different again. An unknown quantity to this listener, the studious net-naut can easily turn up salient Tameana, such as that “his recent output exploits atmosphere and juxtaposition to investigate what he imagines are the hidden parallels between the discernible and the esoteric...”. Liner notes reveal that <font style="font-style: italic;">Buried Traktora</font> is “a composition inspired by the notion that matter is a conduit enabling consciousness to travel through time”. The (homepage) trailing of refs to Beuys, Duchamp and Rothko, all artists who challenged boundaries in their time, sends out further pre-listening signals that Tamea is likely to be a tricky conceptual customer. In fact, from the off “Switched” is upon you with a bristling panorama of sounding objects creating a sonic tableau that would fall under the banner of ‘sound design’, containing few of the elements (melody, harmony, pitched material, rhythm) your folks know as the sound of ‘music’. On “Behold Orderly Digits”, however, things do tend to cohere into a more recogisably musical entity, albeit a queasy mood music of eerie ambiance populated by fleeting digi-effluvia and rattling ghost percussion. On “Odium” buffer override pile-ups and found sounds are slapped together into sound collage. Elsewhere there are incursions of instrument samples, while in other pieces electro-acoustics hold sway. Overall, Tamea creates some atmospherically charged compositions, which crawl with queasy dream depictions. You might think of something like John Wall and his assembages of fragments and juxtaposed importations. Then think again. A challenging listen, and your meaning-making mileage may vary across its audio-drama scenes. <font style="font-style: italic;">Buried Traktora</font> is, though, likely to mystify the bulk of the AW demographic for all that it signals their new spirit of adventure. Unsettling.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhXF4LVZ8VSC6WMOKt2Nk_xS99zSCTtOTVOtE0U0HVZah2V3jUTBW_hjdHdzDAqimUl-NTtIPh9y9m7TldEJkuSw2I41Z9MKzPNSBsArM-Q26P8-zhb3cWq4a1w1w5ddVYW5p1ES67CAtmR/s1600-h/awrazzlog.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhXF4LVZ8VSC6WMOKt2Nk_xS99zSCTtOTVOtE0U0HVZah2V3jUTBW_hjdHdzDAqimUl-NTtIPh9y9m7TldEJkuSw2I41Z9MKzPNSBsArM-Q26P8-zhb3cWq4a1w1w5ddVYW5p1ES67CAtmR/s200/awrazzlog.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5257156311608851842" border="0"></a>Razzlog's <font style="font-style: italic;">Dark Side of the Mood</font> ep is another to go off the beaten AW track. A new artist bringing a small slab of beat-driven electronica to the table, Serbian Dejan Pejčić was evidently raised on a diet of 80s electro, 90s ambient-house and techno, and a smattering of millenial electronic hiphop, judging by the shapes and forms of machine-funk IDM that emerge here. The likes of “Into the Waves” and “Trippin’” suggest an early schooling in Skam, while “Anger Management” points toward previous membership of a chemical brotherhood. 'Razlog' (sic) is apparently Serbian for 'reason', and some might justifiably ask if there’s a compelling one for this 17-minute release. But those after a hefty dose of crunch and splat in the beat department combined with all the analogue wibble and squelch a post-techno B-boy could ask for in five bite-size breakbeat bits will find a very good one here. For the rest, well, there's always other more atmo-charged AtmoWorks. Techy.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi7bXvAqL0dhSAb4YZXqRExK5r4xpNfc-FEqHeRTQcbCt7l_Nz6k_aeYMf4YQxLLYn5Ee7BQZifu7MRfPS_SFe3foFloI6HwNhXcIJoN7pQ2QPGtWW366-bjKNKAa0efX6516JzwJYfveCm/s1600-h/awbrand.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi7bXvAqL0dhSAb4YZXqRExK5r4xpNfc-FEqHeRTQcbCt7l_Nz6k_aeYMf4YQxLLYn5Ee7BQZifu7MRfPS_SFe3foFloI6HwNhXcIJoN7pQ2QPGtWW366-bjKNKAa0efX6516JzwJYfveCm/s200/awbrand.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5257148761482557138" border="0"></a>Next up is Steve Brand, something of a veteran by now, his first experiments with sound forged in the early 80s, all gnarly tape loops, cassettes, and 4-track portastudio play. Early work was under <font style="font-style: italic;">nom du cassette</font> Augur, part of a shadowy ‘tape network’ and follower of the :zoviet*france: school of DIY industrial ambient. Now reclaiming real name for artistic endeavour after more than 20 Augur releases, his <font style="font-style: italic;">SoulSpiral</font> contains two expansive half-hour+ texture maps inspired by Hubble/NASA space footage of worlds taking shape, and by writings addressing “the expansiveness of consciousness in and around us, and our true creative nature as Human Beings, as opposed to the more limited and limiting one sold to us by organizations, popular culture and advertising”. Leaving aside commentary on the true counter-cultural significance of Brand’s work to dwell on its musical value, the deep billowing hypnotics of the opening (title) track and its a dense mass of shifting layers of keyboard, voice and didge are reason enough to stay on the scene. Second track, "Worldmaker," begins with a clarion call of deep Tibetan horns before entering into a twilight more like earth and fire after the title track’s air and water. Kora, bells, voice, drums and an array of whistle and flute, thrum and rumble are orchestrated into a more dynamic and organic soundscape before ceding once more to the lava flow spiral dynamic. Totally immersive.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjq292SLy7Zn-mUHCVOnybt7ZE0FZ6wJeSjrOtsCECAwqs6ZW6ebTgCF7SoI9OyQSrWLio7lYAI2Sf4tCAWoYflSDXYJDhxkha5D5_MJnrN1jOZtBXScubm9OqvRpsHEZw1pvQdiL1g52hQ/s1600-h/awwell.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjq292SLy7Zn-mUHCVOnybt7ZE0FZ6wJeSjrOtsCECAwqs6ZW6ebTgCF7SoI9OyQSrWLio7lYAI2Sf4tCAWoYflSDXYJDhxkha5D5_MJnrN1jOZtBXScubm9OqvRpsHEZw1pvQdiL1g52hQ/s200/awwell.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5257149687581629618" border="0"></a>Finally, Disturbed Earth and Vir Unis join forces for a tri-partite trip, melding electro-acoustic noodling with ethereal atmospherics. The two seemingly cyber-traded tracks, issuing ultimately in <font style="font-style: italic;">Drawn from the Well</font>, which is far more organic and populated by Real Instruments making Real Instrument sounds than much of VU’s previous work. “Flicker” is a 50-minute piece that draws out (for longer than its texturally limited contours merit, truth be told) a softly droning carpet of gentle guitar-pluck and soft keyboard-tinkle, taking on an eponymous dynamic of slow-burning fire. “Relinquish” is an experiment with DE picking reflectively in semi-improv mode on a deliberately unadorned detuned gutstring guitar with minimal treatments (mainly reverb and some filter and EQ tweaking) while VU provides the backdrop of a distant synth-drone texture like a muted midnight mass, all subdued portent, tension without resolution. DE’s right hand investigates timbral variation with a variety of touch and scrape techniques to bring out more interesting sonorities from the corporeality of his instrument. The final, and shortest track, “Velvet World”, is, frustratingly, the most interesting, forsaking guitar twiddle for some of VU’s old liquid synth-swathe inside-drifting, with DE essaying a mini-ritual of tub-thump, rattle and clank, before departing the stage and leaving Vir on his Unis. <font style="font-style: italic;">DftW</font> contains some good moments, but this feels like the primer for a collaboration that, pursued further with the proper coat of paint, might result in a better future finish. (Atmo)Work(s) in progress. <font style="font-weight: bold;">ALAN LOCKETT</font> • <a href="http://www.atmoworks.com">www.atmoworks.com</a><br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">GREG DAVIS & SEBASTIEN ROUX Merveilles (Ahornfelder)<br />JOHN HUDAK On and On (Presto!?)<br />OMIT Interceptor (Helen Scarsdale)</span><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEicNBS94cLLY8CzdwolHjRouzYRgVv9PSR5JHVa14RsQ_VSlq7otksS9cvPjdIMEyBKrbYbXuL_VUf_QbeoyAKAjnscw523FjBrx-nquYU-5OYGbATRMsimf75h4t3M51NplqAx69FBIzo/s1600-h/davis.jpeg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEicNBS94cLLY8CzdwolHjRouzYRgVv9PSR5JHVa14RsQ_VSlq7otksS9cvPjdIMEyBKrbYbXuL_VUf_QbeoyAKAjnscw523FjBrx-nquYU-5OYGbATRMsimf75h4t3M51NplqAx69FBIzo/s200/davis.jpeg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5258130450833286434" /></a>After the gloopy atmospherics and sickening melodies of <span style="font-style:italic;">Paquet Surprise</span>, the detailing of <span style="font-style:italic;">Merveilles</span> comes across as surprisingly complex: digitally sharpened fragments cut through churning ambience; a broken volley of electronics flicker through a carapace of high octane distortion, which in turn push through phase-shifting loops of metallic clank. The duo still like to throw natural objects around, to extract the choicer timbres that result, and process them into a watery ambience stirred by adventurous swoops and squiggles that alternately purr and roar. But now they're positively onanistic in their urge to diddle with their source sounds, to deface these evocative drones with performative gestures, and chase the quickening echoes around their private mixing board and tweak, distort and multiply as needed. The presence of Greg Davis and Sebastien Roux is dispersed and drifts over these grainy fragments of the everyday. Their spectral recontextualizations imbue these banal morsels with a stealthy unease. For "London", found sounds and traditional instruments are gradually integrated into dense collages of layered drone, encrusted with unstable events and varispeed squiggle. Later on the works begin unfurling as a complex polyphony of long-string resonance, engulfed in motorized vibrations and cantankerous field recordings. In fact, even in the less full-bodied moments, such as the sombre aeration of "Eugene", hints of aggression linger amidst the half-formed melodic phrases. At the same time, the music has a weight and depth that pulls the momentum of the pieces back and ensures that the tone is not overly episodic. If anything, the album would have benefitted from more of this. Still, <span style="font-style:italic;">Merveilles</span> is slyly intelligent and, ultimately, a fine advancement for this pairing. <span style="font-weight:bold;">MAX SCHAEFER</span> • <a href="http://www.ahornfelder.de">www.ahornfelder.de</a><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhjzE129-hq7kCG7uZsOh9edSsohFw6XKCIa5ELRJePxOXWg8Gh1zvjxNITPCXYY70aR_sUanny0onDHbVu36iDLoTV7UwoXGNMhGDCWd7NFrFEfXKLPF2dTIujP_nsKu_6SE3fPeu9GYE/s1600-h/hudak.jpeg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhjzE129-hq7kCG7uZsOh9edSsohFw6XKCIa5ELRJePxOXWg8Gh1zvjxNITPCXYY70aR_sUanny0onDHbVu36iDLoTV7UwoXGNMhGDCWd7NFrFEfXKLPF2dTIujP_nsKu_6SE3fPeu9GYE/s200/hudak.jpeg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5258131523384646098" /></a><span style="font-style:italic;">On and On</span> is born of an alchemy which turns midi information into music. Enraptured one morning by the black-capped chickadee as it sang four notes, from A to G and then G to F, sound artist John Hudak took up his guitar. The sieve-like memory of his computer subsequently converted and reduced the strumming audio to a cluster of numbers that themselves held the basic pitch information, as well as duration and volume. This number information then finally was used to excite the pitches of an instrument to produce a halo of harmonics. For a period just over an hour, Hudak thus uses a minimal, repetitive approach to bring out in his shifting chords a welter of nuances. His guitar recalls an organ, a glass harmonica and a wind-driven aeolian harp at various places over the course of the album. Indeed, these moment, in which sounds flicker like digital dragonflies, often bear out a certain sculptural quality. This seems a testament to the disc as an exercise in minimalism, given that its manner of conception was one that, in a simple and effective way, entailed Hudak's having to give away a good deal of control over the proceedings. The results reveal that he was still very much in command of the selecting and editing of the finished product. As a result, the effort has a gentle, anticipatory blush all its own. <span style="font-weight:bold;">MAX SCHAEFER</span> • <a href="http://prestorecords.com">prestorecords.com</a><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiCr5TlrbI_-SZVuCxao4Jh76wun9wdHUKNAykd5L7A0fRoAnIRmpJZfuQ_0WY3pZ3qQNgdER0MlgGXbk_F8M6L_NMfq5FvWWcs1wU28nl1rqmiGYEpf6h1alhyphenhyphenrfKO1rUJG8I08NA5bAE/s1600-h/omit.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiCr5TlrbI_-SZVuCxao4Jh76wun9wdHUKNAykd5L7A0fRoAnIRmpJZfuQ_0WY3pZ3qQNgdER0MlgGXbk_F8M6L_NMfq5FvWWcs1wU28nl1rqmiGYEpf6h1alhyphenhyphenrfKO1rUJG8I08NA5bAE/s200/omit.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5258132759238574786" /></a>Animating <span style="font-style:italic;">Interceptor</span>, this two-disc set by Omit is a delicate organic motion one might not expect to find in a noise merchant so often likened to Birchville Cat Motel, The Dead C and their ilk. Regardless, Omit, aka Clinton Williams, has an ear for subtleties of musical structure and instrumental timbre. He puts together skillfully mixed harmonic shifts in “LockNut Shadow” and an immaculately paced sweep in yet others such “DropSite”. An initial fascination thus develops out of hearing a slowly evolving continuum made up from a multitude of individual voices. Particularly pieces like the title track have a floaty, space-age quality—the nematode bass-thrum, clattering percussion, and solar wind whistling through strings are curiously distant, squirming together in an air-locked chamber, softened only slightly by the processed harmonies of helium-like sighs. Up until this point, Williams' system, though idiosyncratic, affords him a steady enough hand to reveal something recognizable, if still ineffable. His penchant for scatological surrealism, which permeated past efforts such as <span style="font-style:italic;">Quad</span>, soon seeps into the proceedings like oil into water. The environment grows inclemental, sandstorm-like winds and the gnashing and gnawing of what sounds like close-miked termites whittle the surrounding area into deformed shapes; a propulsive mesh of analogue synth and mangled drum machines that flit through groves of upper treble tinglings and a dense lattice of high, whinnying arpeggios that rise and fall like day and night. Gradually, the music does begin to accumulate like landfill. For a good while Williams manages to provide matter off of which to work, to reshape, liquefy and electrify, and thus enable the pieces to remain tantalizingly ambiguous, yet as the bpm count climbs toward the end of the second disc, pieces like the warped bridal march of "WaveForm Finder" come across as a trifle too rudimentary and loaded down. Williams himself was apparently consternated by the fact that he kept on returning to these sound documents while he was supposed to be searching out a proper line of employment. And its not difficult to see why—in its best places, <span style="font-style:italic;">Interceptor</span> is a bottomless pit, and as with Williams, the longer one peers into it, the greater the chance one stands of completely falling in. <span style="font-weight:bold;">MAX SCHAEFER</span> • <a href="http://www.helenscarsdale.com">www.helenscarsdale.com</a>Darren Bergstein (Editor/Publisher)http://www.blogger.com/profile/03979361482585766858noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4680931152558950057.post-2868860250967254992008-10-10T13:45:00.021-04:002008-10-10T21:39:43.674-04:00Installment 19<span style="font-weight:bold;">AKIRA KOSEMURA It’s On Everything (Someone Good)<br />LABFIELD Fishforms (Bottrop-boy)<br />STEPHEN PARSICK Cryotainer (Parsick)<br />STEPHEN PARSICK Fuzzstars (Parsick)<br />QUA Silver Red (Someone Good)<br />QEBO Wroln (Low Impedance)<br />FRANK ROTHKAMM LAX (Rothkamm)<br />JASON SLOAN Ending [Light] (Slo.bor Media)</span><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiGYbriKUJUPO4B7WP7gRN121IqqpUWXhW9O6Oiw0HeLpx-72aO2enSG5DBvhtZdKTG5WdQLhjYmhk8b9g__Zv7TaaGD_TUL1YwMptx3LMZv6n71ejMOChqjil_Jb_yGOYjcinxHG2SRiU/s1600-h/kosemura.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiGYbriKUJUPO4B7WP7gRN121IqqpUWXhW9O6Oiw0HeLpx-72aO2enSG5DBvhtZdKTG5WdQLhjYmhk8b9g__Zv7TaaGD_TUL1YwMptx3LMZv6n71ejMOChqjil_Jb_yGOYjcinxHG2SRiU/s200/kosemura.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5255588086561082594" /></a>Lawrence English is a busy man. A real jack-of-all-trades—music journalist, sound artist, installation organizer, label chieftain—he’s worn more than a handful of hats in at least as many years. As owner/operator of the stalwart Australian experimental indie Room40, he’s amassed a catalog granted deserved respect for its iconoclastic broadview and refusal to be pigeonholed. Somehow, in the midst of all this, he decided to launch another label, Someone Good, pretty much the direct antithesis to everything Room40 represents—in other words, it’s the owner/operator putting an English spin on, of all things, (electro)pop. Releases by The Rational Academy and Lullatone cultivate confectionary shoegazing and tinkertoy J-pop, respectively, with fairly saccharine results; thankfully, the balance achieves some manner of redress courtesy of Akira Kosemura and Qua. The ingratiating <span style="font-style:italic;">It’s On Everything</span> instantly Plops Kosemura down in the company of similarly-striped folks such as Sawako, Filfla, and Sakamoto/Alva Noto, gene-splicing glitch detritus, pindrop percolations, and motor hum with tender piano chords plucked from his trusty grand. Best of all, nothing seems overly precious; Kosemura’s emotional restraint is his virtue, experimental zeal his trump card. All these qualities come to a head on “Pause,” where children’s voices become talking head edits subsumed in rushes of radiowave static, Pan Sonic-esque high frequencies and a disarmingly naïve melody played out on faux xylophones. <a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjVV95uMXGxH7r8NCjuLUHam8T6ccmmQpdn_AjAN5eOSGd-AQyObNAhgc0Ga0CbkKuhK-aRy8hSWZpHGzN6kckRZ7N_bAoTCMM7S3SyIyXUR-dDJsjBfI0LcAIcyKlkkt5tJR3-Refe3ms/s1600-h/qua.jpg"><img style="float:right; margin:0 0 10px 10px;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjVV95uMXGxH7r8NCjuLUHam8T6ccmmQpdn_AjAN5eOSGd-AQyObNAhgc0Ga0CbkKuhK-aRy8hSWZpHGzN6kckRZ7N_bAoTCMM7S3SyIyXUR-dDJsjBfI0LcAIcyKlkkt5tJR3-Refe3ms/s200/qua.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5255586825868449906" /></a>On his third recording, the mini-album <span style="font-style:italic;">Silver Red</span>, Qua doggedly skips down that primrose path towards pop; live drumming grounds chopped up acoustics (guitar, piano) glimpsed through an Oval tunnel of loops, but such a rhythmic undercurrent does the disc few favors. Were he to jettison such “mainstream” leanings and focus his attention where it mattered most (the astringent drones closing “Silver Red 1” beg for larger investigation), Qua might find that all elusive sweet spot. Until then, <span style="font-style:italic;">Silver Red</span> is all a clatterbox, long on rhyme, short on reason. <span style="font-weight:bold;">DARREN BERGSTEIN</span> • <a href="http://www.someonegood.org">www.someonegood.org</a><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgA-nCkQoKfNfE8pWb_6vkBDEGIOw-wz-aykIBVZHImqFaASxoMYyIYZNNFrwgSzGuwFyk6dAQAfWbY5BUT3IQE394CcLVxruAFBrJxeYZv7PEhgds-NTEOR6kFiJoFALkpaYIBWl61yqE/s1600-h/labfield.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgA-nCkQoKfNfE8pWb_6vkBDEGIOw-wz-aykIBVZHImqFaASxoMYyIYZNNFrwgSzGuwFyk6dAQAfWbY5BUT3IQE394CcLVxruAFBrJxeYZv7PEhgds-NTEOR6kFiJoFALkpaYIBWl61yqE/s200/labfield.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5255588894165538210" /></a>The line between drone and the onkyo aesthetic of contemporary electroacoustic improvisation gets blurrier every day. Good news is there’s more manna for us perpetually unsatisfied customers—bad news is that said manna’s so often starved of originality, some of its makers confusing paucity with invention. Ingar Zach, who with David Stackenas comprises fifty percent of Labfield, is fast becoming familiar to EAI cognoscenti, an experimentalist little concerned with a staid “jazz” vernacular bent on shoehorning young ruffians such as himself who are motivated by textural tinct rather than dog-eared rules and regs. Whatever is revealed by the teeming meteorological din of <span style="font-style:italic;">Fishforms</span>—particularly the 24 minute opener, “Gin”—at first glance is ultimately deceptive. “Gin” manages to sneak up on you in a way that is totally unexpected; stay the course, allow the varying layers to be stealthily revealed, and you’ll be rewarded dividends. Using prepared guitars, lo-fi electronics, undefined percussion and Zach’s clutch of electrified noisemakers, the sounds that first stir up on “Gin” feel like they’re being squeezed through a lemon press; below those initial lateral squeals and flatlined tones arise peculiar throbbings, the odd martial drumbeat, and strangely pealing drones that actually own up to finer detail the more intensely the orbiting soundmass is ratcheted. How Zach and Stackenas pull off this hat trick reveals two gents deft of hand and process, for little of their original instrumentation (triangles? String decay? Musical box?) is recognizable in a piece favoring such relentless forward momentum. Unlike their stylistic mirror Organum, Labfield don’t ultimately succumb to the pleasuredome obsession with noise: the looping strums of “Rin” enforce that notion, even when battered by digital gales. It’s déjà vu all over again when the concluding “Showa” adds a splash of metallic tonic to the earlier “Gin,” but when the grog’s this intoxicating, one can’t resist another nip at the bar. <span style="font-weight:bold;">DARREN BERGSTEIN</span> • <a href="http://www.bottrop-boy.com">www.bottrop-boy.com</a><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhFpoVcGepAO7L6nRKTKxdrmyQce_Q5frQRQkuzYekwOcOns4Er87wso8KkGk2efPqbsfXnPrbykZS5N7_jV84oqjsmdfPoqwXbyQ4GIuuDYOLwJxAVAoC6HtKFljncK8hT931X1IK7KTc/s1600-h/parsick.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhFpoVcGepAO7L6nRKTKxdrmyQce_Q5frQRQkuzYekwOcOns4Er87wso8KkGk2efPqbsfXnPrbykZS5N7_jV84oqjsmdfPoqwXbyQ4GIuuDYOLwJxAVAoC6HtKFljncK8hT931X1IK7KTc/s200/parsick.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5255589673285241474" /></a>Stephen Parsick’s name on its own probably doesn’t send tongues wagging, but it damn well should. He and his cohort have coined the term “doombient” in a valiant attempt to describe what they produce—most notably as the duo Ramp with fellow doombienteer Frank Makowski—but Parsick solo pushes enough envelopes to scatter any sort of catch-all categorizations to the four winds. Hatched in jet-black clamshell cases, both <span style="font-style:italic;">Cryotainer</span> and <span style="font-style:italic;">Fuzzstars</span> (released in ridiculously limited editions of only 25 each) plumb uncharted depths of interstellar hell, massed sonic choirs of great drones belching their oratory incantations from the centers of spatial chambers sucked dry of air. Subtitled “Music for Gasometers,” and recorded in front of a spellbound audience whose disembodied grunts and twitches act like unmoored spirits that Parsick weaves into the haunted mix, <span style="font-style:italic;">Cryotainer</span> challenges even the hoariest of genre kingpins (Lull, Final, Sleep Research Facility) to seek refuge. Though spread out over eight tracks, the music cycles endlessly decaying refrains as one long monolithic journey through the void, deepcore synths charting slow, circular, whispery progressions. Based on improvisations wrought during rehearsals for some planetarium shows in Germany, <span style="font-style:italic;">Fuzzstars</span> plots similarly isolationist trajectories. Low end vibrations shore up the sounds of distant chiming metals, synths channel the dying wavelengths of unseen pulsars, thick tonal clusters ebb and flow in a flux of zero gravity. Altering psychic states, suspending your time sense, and basically actualizing the abject terror of galactic solipsism, Parsick’s abstractions aren’t for those too squeamish to make the necessary existential leaps. The rest need seek out these <span style="font-style:italic;">objets d’sombre</span> at once or risk missing out at their own peril. <span style="font-weight:bold;">DARREN BERGSTEIN</span> • <a href="http://www.parsick.com">www.parsick.com</a><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjMmWHeVaMUqacYVufq9Oip8cxufcqBuiboJv5YLouhNTbo3RkWlHT1xF1Ki5-RB7JJ-gPS7QJp1aFK0It_EznBiWjX9SYl_0FyKPrOqz-jUSwIwyWDsFk46uOQOECa3kMqvIrGOyPEBEE/s1600-h/qebo.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjMmWHeVaMUqacYVufq9Oip8cxufcqBuiboJv5YLouhNTbo3RkWlHT1xF1Ki5-RB7JJ-gPS7QJp1aFK0It_EznBiWjX9SYl_0FyKPrOqz-jUSwIwyWDsFk46uOQOECa3kMqvIrGOyPEBEE/s200/qebo.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5255589912475417858" /></a>The hyperactive gastric eruptions that are part and parcel of <span style="font-style:italic;">Wroln</span> suggest Qebo might be the Pete Townsend of post-Autechre software abuse: as the masticated sonic onslaught unfolds throughout, one can imagine the two Qebotians swinging their laptops high overhead, a la the former Who guitarist, before crashing them and their itinerant sounds to the stage floor in self-destructive fury. Yes, <span style="font-style:italic;">Wroln</span> is a violent music, spastic, shrill, and supercharged, but somehow the duo maintain enough control at the wheel to stave off anarchy…barely. Trouble is, who today has the patience for such well-wrought but technologically inchoate noise? The pincushion beat mechanics and thinly corrosive synth sweeps of “New Shit” make for quite the opening grabber, our savvy duo making mincemeat out of whatever polite ambience comes their way, electronics body-popping and short-circuiting at near-gabber speeds. The malevolent cell structure of “Cancer” is slow-growing at first but quickly metastasizes, as corrosive materiél congeals in a digital bubblebath, scoring their containers with acid reflux. Qebo’s follow-up to their rather excellent <span style="font-style:italic;">Flopper</span> on the defunct Vibrant Music is a puzzle—perhaps they wanted to reinvent themselves as laptop contrarians, reacting against a perception that all is too warm and fuzzy in the electronic lumpenproletariat (although “S06th5ng” courts less abrasive realms, a unfrantic piece of regurgitative spit and polish). True or not, <span style="font-style:italic;">Wroln</span> is tough going for even the most rugged laptop warrior, a more atmospheric sub-Merzbowian blast of arctic road chill made by two ‘warewolves quite indifferent to our tender sensibilities. ‘Course, that all depends on which side of the trackpad you’re on. <span style="font-weight:bold;">DARREN BERGSTEIN</span> • <a href="http://www.lowimpedance.net">www.lowimpedance.net</a><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhWZ6ZwXUAN_G2tByOrCr2uPQCf-AGmNHAB99PCQFwJ_jNDdaRIsQk1ZGQaPRBIeRDmWJtwRjsLWYrGNKZ-QcLcn3hhWtCGXTh86X8-5Xo_inxVMwL-BFO2JP43ZU1bMJytbPubaxuqdmU/s1600-h/rothkamm.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhWZ6ZwXUAN_G2tByOrCr2uPQCf-AGmNHAB99PCQFwJ_jNDdaRIsQk1ZGQaPRBIeRDmWJtwRjsLWYrGNKZ-QcLcn3hhWtCGXTh86X8-5Xo_inxVMwL-BFO2JP43ZU1bMJytbPubaxuqdmU/s200/rothkamm.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5255591519126028290" /></a>Run through a battery of modules, software, numerous processors and their respective interfaces, Frank Rothkamm seeks to make explicit in his sonic mock-ups of <span style="font-style:italic;">LAX</span> the metaphors he postulates on the booklet’s hypertext liners. It’s a shaky construct to begin with, aurally and narratively—Rothkamm’s notes beggar tenuous suppositions between the “parallel” realities of Los Angeles’s stressed-out transportation system while simultaneously attempting to erect their doppelgangers in sound. A dubious undertaking, <span style="font-style:italic;">LAX</span> ironically smacks of its own Hollywoodian “high concept”, especially since Rothkamm’s analogic is questionable, the text often reading like spurious silicon-age jabberwocky. Of prominent concern is the music itself, which fares marginally better. Rothkamm’s previous recordings suggested there was a unique new experimentalist in town, but the lackluster ideas scattered within <span style="font-style:italic;">LAX</span> are much too inert to warrant concentrated listening. Stripped of context, a good chunk of the ten shortish pieces here recall the primetime of 50s fantastic cinema and 60s electronic academia—“Still Random Or Burial of Music” could have been an outtake from the Barron’s <span style="font-style:italic;">Forbidden Planet </span>soundtrack, replete with the paroxysms of id monsters stomping across barren alien planetscapes. Rothkamm’s skill is undeniable, but little here is truly memorable; sketchy and indistinct, the various sawtooth waveforms, radar pings, coarse frequency pulsations, and gnarled machine ambience are innocuous at best, pedestrian at worst. Certainly far less inspired recordings are clogging the body electronic, yet Rothkamm’s laudable mimesis is unable to provide the thrust needed for lift-off. <span style="font-weight:bold;">DARREN BERGSTEIN</span> •<a href="http://www.rothkamm.com"> www.rothkamm.com</a><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEja8XOMTCf5QwgbJAPGI-TKQYNMSOs1FKWBbDgtwDfgjGOKGYzjPq3PNDi_h6xxGODnIJrEp0CnEQfiqz2iisSsgf6Eq3yRbLF5Z2OmOvaDrYg-8mEHLYNwwb3TbhXYwVGAgCBO8HZQx74/s1600-h/sloan.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEja8XOMTCf5QwgbJAPGI-TKQYNMSOs1FKWBbDgtwDfgjGOKGYzjPq3PNDi_h6xxGODnIJrEp0CnEQfiqz2iisSsgf6Eq3yRbLF5Z2OmOvaDrYg-8mEHLYNwwb3TbhXYwVGAgCBO8HZQx74/s200/sloan.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5255590381245734210" /></a>Cage-y references and acknowledged Enoisms registered, Jason Sloan makes no bones about his initial forays into generative music and his own highly conceptual motives, but being branded a “copyist” should not concern him—the oceanic swells of <span style="font-style:italic;">Ending (Light)</span> are potent enough to withstand the choicest scrutiny. Whether or not he’s his legitimate heir apparent, Sloan might well namecheck Eno when he ticks off this music’s founding fathers, however, the very process Sloan champions might compel him to add Steve Roach’s similarly inclined ethos to that reverential list. This double CDR set comprises just three longform tracks, the 53-minute “Open (Breathe)”, the 40-minute “Plain (Stretched Forever)” and the title track clocking in at a relatively modest quarter hour—sound familiar? I’d wager that cousin Steve buoys these dense tonefloats far more than uncle Brian—either affiliation fails to leech any inherent value from the works in question, but it only takes mere seconds of exposure to trigger instant flashbacks of the Arizonan shaman’s recent <span style="font-style:italic;">Immersion</span> releases or, more tellingly, his earlier <span style="font-style:italic;">Structures from Silence</span>. Though for this recording he traded in his usual ambient guitars for an “intuitive” software of his own making, Sloan’s inspiration arises out of the same chasmatic depths and mood-stabilizing expansiveness as Mssr. Roach. It might help to be in a particularly quiescent state of mind to fully appreciate “Open (Breathe)”’s epic grandeur, but it isn’t mandated; simply allow the shifting semi-precious respirations to assume the dimensions of whatever listening space is provided, and let osmosis take over. Though well-executed, the sonic architecture, “static” (an occupational hazard of the process, perhaps), even intentionally tepid in its emotional engagement, doesn’t prep you for the successive “Plain (Stretched Forever),” every bit the former’s polar opposite in both tone and temperament. Slowly but surely, like a flower’s petals welcoming morning sunlight, Sloan’s incandescent drones blossom and shimmer over icy surfaces of minimalist, profound beauty. Though the entirety ultimately becomes more than the sum of its constituent parts, the title track’s similar ruminations—irising opal notes that thinly vibrate with a palpable sadness—do act as a sonic bridge between Sloan’s beginning/ending dualities. Generatively speaking, automatic writing has rarely sounded so good—Uncle Brian would be proud. <span style="font-weight:bold;">DARREN BERGSTEIN</span> • <a href="http://www.slobormedia.com">www.slobormedia.com</a>Darren Bergstein (Editor/Publisher)http://www.blogger.com/profile/03979361482585766858noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4680931152558950057.post-48633573410953886142008-10-02T12:44:00.017-04:002008-10-03T16:21:20.356-04:00Installment 18<span style="font-weight:bold;">CITY RAIN Light Turned On (Boltfish)<br />OBFUSC Cities of Cedar (Boltfish)<br />Z-ARC Accumulative Effect (Boltfish)</span><br /><br /><span style="font-style:italic;">Better to burn out than to fade away</span>…maybe IDM, as a strict, now probably passé, genre rubric, adopted said platitude years ago, but the enterprising label Boltfish ain’t having none of it. As far as they’re concerned, the propagation of “organic electronica” (Boltfish’s own descriptor) is a categorical imperative. At least from a British standpoint, there’s few labels left out of a once mighty Anglo collective (e.g., Neo Ouija and Expanding’s dormancy, though both poised for resurrection; others such as Focus/Defocus and New Electronica long dead and buried), which seems to smack of marketplace logistics rather than consumer indifference. Certainly on evidence here, these three recent Boltfish outings are testament to a continuing evolution of rhythmic laptop-generated electronica doing its best to bypass genre shoehorning or succumbing to any of its software manipulator’s compositional mouse-traps.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh5OuBHt-wNo8pTkImGzu0Bmdr56uQOApmVRGpPikie2ZW__jtE6FaxStGUMyc_Ooru9BdTFvWp02pv2nuUqw7oqGtF7Akqt0XPxSRLCeYeIVcGw0u1o1uT0pT2d7Rk9PPJcpJnz9KTf0I/s1600-h/BOLTLP002_light-turned-on.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh5OuBHt-wNo8pTkImGzu0Bmdr56uQOApmVRGpPikie2ZW__jtE6FaxStGUMyc_Ooru9BdTFvWp02pv2nuUqw7oqGtF7Akqt0XPxSRLCeYeIVcGw0u1o1uT0pT2d7Rk9PPJcpJnz9KTf0I/s200/BOLTLP002_light-turned-on.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5252580336580191442" /></a>It might be too early to deem Philadelphian Ben Runyan one of our “expert knob twiddlers” (though the photo gracing his artist page on the Boltfish site shows him enthusiastically doing just that), but his full-length entrance onto the world stage as City Rain is a step in the right direction. Apparently a personal memento/reconciliation writ sonically, I’m dubious that young Runyan’s amassed the requisite life experience(s) that should imbue <span style="font-style:italic;">Light Turned On</span> with the gravitas he feels it deserves—such speculation aside, however, this is a superb debut of charmed electronica. Sharply-honed and texturally inventive, <span style="font-style:italic;">Light Turned On</span> does beckon numerous ghosts from rusting machines; were the tracks not so imagistically forged, the dreaded “indietronica” virus infecting a number of them (mostly by a few opportunistic guitar/piano cells) might well have tragically metastasized. Thankfully, Runyan treats such pseudo-Boards of Canada-isms as earnest dogma rather than smug affectation. Hence, the poignant digital Americana (replete with distant thunderswells and Budd-ing keys) of “Back on Track” remains on solid footing courtesy of humid, twilight atmospherics and a snappy laptop rhythm that buttresses the Fahey-esque fingerpicking throughout. More importantly, Runyan’s wise to let his leftfield tendencies rule the day: foregone 90s blip-techno arms the cleverly-titled “Face for Books”; “Well You Said” and “Click Clack” are exercises in adolescent nostalgia subsumed by glitch profundity; the fetching “Chasing Leaves” reads like a digital etch-a-sketch, balancing its rhythmic tempo between dribbling high-frequencies, cricket chatter, and sounds that quiver like charged jello. As warm urban precipitation, <span style="font-style:italic;">Light Turned On</span> deftly illuminates the IDioM, shaped to make your life easier.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEglp48okk8N-yQboOJhTTHHjk5SMqE9cr1xr5JLvh4p546UUj2bQgSdsSjXUNLUXw_wm0vaHZZCOt1eIblvpZz6KbpMRX5HuDXvYgxwG8ePJ97gzmvqO95_TRLMJjOgh1zYHuqbriggqE0/s1600-h/BOLTLP003_cities-of-cedar.gif"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEglp48okk8N-yQboOJhTTHHjk5SMqE9cr1xr5JLvh4p546UUj2bQgSdsSjXUNLUXw_wm0vaHZZCOt1eIblvpZz6KbpMRX5HuDXvYgxwG8ePJ97gzmvqO95_TRLMJjOgh1zYHuqbriggqE0/s200/BOLTLP003_cities-of-cedar.gif" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5252580527124576130" /></a>Metropolises of a similar sort emerge on Obfusc’s sophomore effort <span style="font-style:italic;">Cities of Cedar</span>, and judging from Brooklyner Joseph Burke, the view outside his window must be nothing short of postcard paradise. He makes no bones about the clarity of his vision; unlike his chosen moniker, the music doesn’t so much bewilder as bewitch. Obfusc bridge gaps between vaseline-smeared beat poetics and countryside ambient, a rural, elegiac, backwoods synthtopia made that much more incongruous by Burke’s studio locale. He does utilize various samples and observations a la Bill Nelson’s orchestras arcana, making due with similar <span style="font-style:italic;">methods de appliqué</span>: “Delayed Sunshine Reaction” waxes like some leftover 60s bit of radiophonic psychedelia, guitarsurge going headfirst against tictac snares and whisper-pitch electronics. “Close Your Eyes and Daydream” is techno lite for the hacker generation, dewy, gauzy, indistinct but patently gorgeous for it, Burke smartly incorporating “real” sampled drums and cymbals to anchor the oozing, effervescent electronic bubblebath. Of course, those of more discerning opinions will be quick to recognize such noises across the Board (as in Canada), but such narrowmindedness would negate the wonderful miasma of a track like “Mood Gradient,” whose little fluffy clouds, buffeted by windy drum machine dada, channel Cluster into the finest pop-art soul balm. The aforementioned City Rain, plus Milieu, Phasen, Electric West, and Ova Looven, remake some of the works here in their own image, proffering a handy addendum to the proceedings; if anything, their inability to wholly transform, neé <span style="font-style:italic;">obfuscate</span>, the central melodic characters whipped up by their colleague says much about Burke’s gift of electronic gab.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi1p_zkzSRSduFtprhlu4CPmCJ0yf8IyoESv7RAUDMTijuxBXkxb91RcVfcDKXQFrBeDp8ECs_z7fvn3X8ZwFYQkpCOPp92Dge6YPgYQ3I6ovN64yhsbSTSm1qj1ZxtgNatl-dJ6mw0cGI/s1600-h/BOLTLP001_accumulative-effect.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi1p_zkzSRSduFtprhlu4CPmCJ0yf8IyoESv7RAUDMTijuxBXkxb91RcVfcDKXQFrBeDp8ECs_z7fvn3X8ZwFYQkpCOPp92Dge6YPgYQ3I6ovN64yhsbSTSm1qj1ZxtgNatl-dJ6mw0cGI/s200/BOLTLP001_accumulative-effect.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5252580781134413682" /></a>Z-Arc remembers the heyday of nascent 90s “electronic listening music” (and 80s EBM industrialisms, too), letting it rip to pretty devastating <span style="font-style:italic;">Accumulative Effect</span>. However lest you figure this mental machine music is all bump and grindhouse, think again: Z-Arc’s far too savvy a programmer to simply leave his sequencers on overpilot and head for the hills. The level of intelligence at work here—deciding on the appropriate direction of the soundstream, carefully considering where to edit and/or delete—enjoins Z-Arc’s creative common ground, in effect, shoring up the ‘I’ in IDM. The cover’s primary colors and exactitude of shape mirror the music well—ditto the pointed sci-fi/futurist track titles. One imagines electrons catapulting off the right angles of “Dihedral,” beats sparkling in prismatic glare. Or the fractal bleep of “40 Microns,” shapeshifting atmospherics barking like a mad Black Dog. Or the LED backlight charisma of “Refracted”, Z-Arc sporting an impish Cheshire grin as he somehow merges the percolating gain of Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark with Kirk DeGiorgio’s slo-mo 303 brushstrokes and silvery envelopes. If Klaus Schulze were reincarnated as a malcontent armed to the teeth with latté, laptop, and Cubase, he’d be bending the light fantastic like Z-Arc. Fast fashion <span style="font-style:italic;">Accumulative Effect</span> isn’t, but the sentiment’s all the same: just can’t get enough. <span style="font-weight:bold;">DARREN BERGSTEIN</span> • <a href="http://www.boltfish.co.uk/">www.boltfish.co.uk</a><br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">CELER Discourses of the Withered (Infraction)<br />CELER The Everything and the Nothing (Infraction)<br />CELER / MATHIEU RUHLMANN Mesoscaphe (Spekk)</span><br /><br />Barber, Chopin, Wagner, Mahler, Debussy, Ravel, Satie, Schoenberg, Varese, Cage, Stockhausen, Reich, Hermann, Delerue, Pärt, Feldman, Dockstader, Baumann/Froese, Vangelis, Bryars, Eno, Budd, Spybey, Köner, Potter, Coleclough, Voigt. This recital of influences with its broad sweep of classical through modernist, soundtrack and post-industrial, early experimentalist pioneers to sons of pioneers, serves both to signal <span>Celer</span>’s musical sensibilities and to situate them in relation to a certain lineage. Will Long and Dani Baquet-Long, Celer curators and compilers of this list (selectively imported here), are string-driven texturalists whose extensive recent back catalogue of self-released works testifies to extensive audio-inquiries at the intersection between organic instrumentation and digital manipulation, between consonance/dissonance and pitched/unpitched sound clines, between the outer of the environment and the inner of the studio.<br /><br />Celer music consciously operates within a narrow dynamic, preferring to sprawl languorously within its chosen ambit of textural transport to poring over structure’s strictures. Their privileging of sound colour comes with a rigorous working methodology: instruments—mainly cello, viola, violin—are first recorded to create source sounds to be further blended with field recordings and other variant timbres. These are spliced and re-assembled to make loops which are in turn sampled, layered and processed. Something of an artisan approach in the age of Any Sound You Want In A Plug-in, this seemingly laborious process has the great merit of endowing their sonorities with depth and richness; they swim with particulate detail, like a mini-orchestra dissolved in a light digital solution. So what you get is variations on a kind of slow-core micro-symphonics, gauzy motifs emerging—oceanic, aetherial, chthonic—swelling then relenting to liminal levels. The whole comes wrapped in enigmatic titlings, micro-stories laden with recondite images for unravelling by the reader-listener, text-supplements to audio-documents, cryptic signs to possible worlds, glimpsed darkly through the passages of these driftworks.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgN-irfgPikIPv1At0hy65FG7pwmnukZK79aaD-QmfPckJLfwIV3cEADtFmS5a2PiBT_AoMAzhfheJ0dijQBk1WZ-lFeBLdDUawge5oDyOTimZk_egwn-BGCBnVpMwnDa-SmIqgEzlbw-BP/s1600-h/celerdiscsmall.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgN-irfgPikIPv1At0hy65FG7pwmnukZK79aaD-QmfPckJLfwIV3cEADtFmS5a2PiBT_AoMAzhfheJ0dijQBk1WZ-lFeBLdDUawge5oDyOTimZk_egwn-BGCBnVpMwnDa-SmIqgEzlbw-BP/s200/celerdiscsmall.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5250743883379520450" border="0" /></a>Thematically, keynote Celer release, <span style="font-style: italic;">Discourses of the Withered</span>, seems to treat of transcendence, through the evocation of a semi-sacral space. One hesitates to call it “spiritual” for fear of scaring off those without a mission, but the programme is driven by a distillation of Dani’s recent experience of an Indian sojourn. The music, anyway, is independently suggestive enough to float free of author-driven signifieds. Getting down to specifics, “This Thinking Globe Exploding” opens in a characteristic ebb-flow dynamic of surges, based around a consonant 4-chord progression with an undertow that tugs toward dissonance without ending in descent. A similar motion underlies “The Carved God Is Gone, Waking above the Pileus Clouds”, though with field recording infusions and a darker wooze of billowing spirals around it. Within the recursive build-up and fall-back movements of these pieces come subtle microvariations in tidal timbre. On “Stargazing Lily Lacks the Flower” vari-pitched string tones well up, edged with echo-haloes, into slow-motion near-crescendos. Undercurrents in dark water occasionally suggest themselves beneath the serene surface, inky smears lining silver clouds. So let the customary referential roll-call of post-classical ambienteers be read – the litany of Gas and Basinski, Stars of the Lid and Eluvium, Deaf Center and Marsen Jules, et al., but only so co-ordinates may be drawn for a likely audience ambit, with the rider that these not be read too literally as an index of sound. A piece such as “The Separation Of the Two-Phased Apple Blossoms” has become unmoored from such referents, reaching into a different harmonic drone canon, aligned more, albeit obliquely, with the slow shutter speed imagism of fellow-Infraction-ite Adam Pacione’s <span style="font-style:italic;">Stills to Motion</span>, the heliotropics of Andrew Deutsch’s <span style="font-style:italic;">The Sun</span>, and far-off refractions of some of Tim Hecker’s <span style="font-style:italic;">Mirages</span>. And the closing “Delaying the Entropy, in Emptiness, Forms are Born” erects a welter of sonorous sustain into an edifice that stands somewhere facing away from the last vestiges of the late Western spacemusic of the U.S. toward the reworked drone-mines of the Northern European underground, and newer tesselations by Paul Bradley and Keith Berry.<br /><br /></l><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhZ-SS_keb8zlmoHBRxxQRn5rxwX49Li9Eevaqes_rjlC_VHdRo66bznmUNPwbSdrBpmnrA12dOU7F_PzwnoGhlE_dMRjhYZdgrBb3MFyMUdv6vmBplc9LwuJy271CTgZnawfJYG7ama6io/s1600-h/celereverysmall.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhZ-SS_keb8zlmoHBRxxQRn5rxwX49Li9Eevaqes_rjlC_VHdRo66bznmUNPwbSdrBpmnrA12dOU7F_PzwnoGhlE_dMRjhYZdgrBb3MFyMUdv6vmBplc9LwuJy271CTgZnawfJYG7ama6io/s200/celereverysmall.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5250744190386678706" border="0" /></a><l> Companion release, <span style="font-style: italic;">The Everything and The Nothing</span>, is composed of outtakes from <span style="font-style: italic;">DotW</span>, and it is to Infraction’s credit that these have not been allowed to wither, forgotten on the editing room floor, or squeezed onto a bonus mini-disc, but given full and equal release status. Featuring one long track in suite form, parts of “The Everything and the Nothing (in 13 parts)” are discretely identifiable, though its long meditative motifs, placed in suspension and infinitely revolved, tend to bleed into each other. Celer dwell on a certain progression, repeating it insistently, scrutinising it, altering its surrounding air to let it breathe differently. Otiose, in a sense, to wonder about whereabouts, instead wander within the undulant contours of its trance-inducing arcs, moving with its contractions and expansions, following with ears peeled those diaphanous plumes as they outfold, time-lapsed, in echo-flecked cloud-splendour, by turns luminous, then darkening at the edges. Superficially, the same deep-breathing turgescent sequences are spooled out in obsessive recursion, but the devil is in the micro-variative detail, dressing up the dirge into a mesmerizing immersion zone in which to darkly luxuriate. Celer’s is a music that induces a strange, but strangely pleasing, tension - so apart, at times hermetic, at times so tremulously precious, yet undeniably endowed with a sense of arcane seductivity.<br /><br /></l><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjxKwYllLUqoagn-kEzAXNm-O_fXnCXJHYJZz95IMAG9gpciDLw-uDXDgNoitDU2izGgweleqvewOGP0qLgozd3BgpYCqQn5Zwz5HMnM_UhYWql_HHfSgQOqpHLZXsZBb0VqpGQ1CIkEWiS/s1600-h/00celer.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjxKwYllLUqoagn-kEzAXNm-O_fXnCXJHYJZz95IMAG9gpciDLw-uDXDgNoitDU2izGgweleqvewOGP0qLgozd3BgpYCqQn5Zwz5HMnM_UhYWql_HHfSgQOqpHLZXsZBb0VqpGQ1CIkEWiS/s200/00celer.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5250842559415135202" border="0" /></a><l> A quite different beast is <span style="font-style: italic;">Mesoscaphe</span>, on which Celer commune with audio-visualist <span>Mathieu Ruhlmann</span>, Mystery Sea-man turned Spekk-ulator. Taking as their programme the voyage of a submarine vessel which explored the currents of the Gulf Stream back in the moon-landing mists of 1969, Celer’s instruments and electronic treatments consort with Ruhlmann’s field recordings of the Ben Franklin and attendant environments for a distance documentation of the event. The methodologies of these sound artists are differing but symbiotic, the Canadian trafficking largely in captured audio/sound photography. Celer’s instinctively more musical approach sees them mediating to reform and synch materials in mimesis of oceanic and underwater movement. Despite this, the three lengthy pieces are characterised by atonal isolationist inclinations and low depth pressure, denying the stringy mellifluities of their Infraction soundings. <span style="font-style: italic;">Mesoscaphe</span> is more disquieting, their pans and swells, crests and subsides working with associated titlings to draw sound-story linkages. These are dictated more by Ruhlmann’s murky materials, contaminated with submarine ambience, sonorities gruzzy and anharmonic, teeming with corroded resonances below the spume, the whole evoking a sense of enclosure within expanse. For all Celer’s inclination to uplift and eschewal of dark ambient cliché, the subnavigations here disentombed seem to tell of buried dreams and troubled resting places. <span style="font-weight:bold;">ALAN LOCKETT</span> • <a href="http://www.infractionrecords.com/">www.infractionrecords.com</a> / <a href="http://www.spekk.net/">www.spekk.net </a><br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">CHRISTOPHER BISSONNETTE In Between Words (Kranky)<br />MATT BORGHI Huronic Minor (Hypnos Secret Sounds)<br />ELUDER The Most Beautiful Blue (Infraction)<br />MILIEU A Warm Wooden Hollow (Infraction)<br />PARKS Umber (Infraction)<br />MOVE D / B. BRUNN Songs from the Beehive (Smallville)<br />NICOLA RATTI From the Desert Came Saltwater (Anticipate)<br />2562 Aerial (Tectonic)</span><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjgLk7bb2Tqfp1wJqHOrwfV-ypzW2Y1BnBt3rLpJYFwFPnfs8Ox-W0QAglU4ybwTfIzoGmqnoM1LL8-Fkd-hyA_2xMFYLJi09HmY4hMz6lo17S6bXK0SumWMNLIjElucQHtMJ7Nx4q-3HRF/s1600-h/chrisbisssmaller.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjgLk7bb2Tqfp1wJqHOrwfV-ypzW2Y1BnBt3rLpJYFwFPnfs8Ox-W0QAglU4ybwTfIzoGmqnoM1LL8-Fkd-hyA_2xMFYLJi09HmY4hMz6lo17S6bXK0SumWMNLIjElucQHtMJ7Nx4q-3HRF/s200/chrisbisssmaller.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5250743330097493330" border="0" /></a><span style="font-style: italic;"> <span>In Between Words</span></span> continues <span>Christopher Bissonnette</span>’s digital pokery into orchestral nooks and spatial crannies, instituted on his 2005 Kranky coming-out, <span style="font-style: italic;">Periphery</span>. That recording’s glassine pool of diaphanous drift and seriously altered neo-classical states constituted an update of Kranky’s space-drone tradition, fusing it with some of the spirit of electronica, most closely aligned with the organic-simulating pop-microsound of 12k. The follow-up finds Bissonnette continuing and extending, finding an elegant way of linking top and tail of Kranky’s considerable body of work, from the organic spatialisms of its Labradford and SotL beginnings in the 90s to the late-period digitised drone-fests of Keith Fullerton Whitman and Tim Hecker. <span style="font-style: italic;">In Between Words</span> comes out a few shades darker and deeper-grained than <span style="font-style: italic;">Periphery</span>, homing in seemingly, with an eye to allusive title, on interstices between pitched sounds. “Provenance” opens with smooth drones coming undone into a polished glitch-fuzz, a crepitus of strings-in-remotion leaking out of a vast orchestral hum. All timbre, melody sublimated, then snaking forth distended into electric spirals of neo-Orientalist intervals, it thrums with something strange this way coming. “A Touch of Heartbreak”, on the other hand, stretches out a remote choir beyond recognition till it sits like a heat haze over the sound plains, at first quietly teeming with particulate brownian motion, before shifting gradually across a series of subtle timbral movements before its density settles into pointillist ethereal white-out. Quite stunning. Similarly, “Orffyreus Wheel” plays with what seems like a trapped melodic fragment, obscuring its loopy articulations through a semi-obliterative digi-raincloud, passing it through various filters which abrade its textures with soft noise and festoon it with static streamers. Already compelling enough, the set gets stellar with “The Colonnade”, all buzzing Dronus Maximus, before collapsing into strange effacements; fragments of pianistics seep up through the residues lingering in folds and rhizomes. Ending comes in the gushing geyser of microsonic orchestrality that is “Jour et Nuit”, the most beautiful swathes of stringy crepuscularity never smeared by Wolfgang Voigt. But this is no Teutonic King’s Forest or Magic Mountain, rather a complex liquid distillate of Canadian concrete, an enthralling soundtrack to a hypnagogue cityscape. <span style="font-weight:bold;">ALAN LOCKETT</span> • <a href="http://www.kranky.com/">www.kranky.com</a><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgvlJMSHcf3BXeYbf65fQ6EccdbKhh1ifs22Q9ZX0Za0SDNCu0CZC0fsiXUpMRtB8_fqHYgVuRk7VPF18Gtw9GPNLbiqy2H6Oxzbcrjxc2NZjPc7B8Nc2CJVXUuc8g1Tl6t_iGGJ019dZK3/s1600-h/mattborghihuronicsmaller.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgvlJMSHcf3BXeYbf65fQ6EccdbKhh1ifs22Q9ZX0Za0SDNCu0CZC0fsiXUpMRtB8_fqHYgVuRk7VPF18Gtw9GPNLbiqy2H6Oxzbcrjxc2NZjPc7B8Nc2CJVXUuc8g1Tl6t_iGGJ019dZK3/s200/mattborghihuronicsmaller.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5250743609894865010" border="0" /></a> <span>Matt Borghi</span>’s low profile atmospherics have been under most radars for some time. Despite this, a small loyal following and a limiting of editions that errs on the side of safety means that many releases have gone out of print. Fortunately for those not versed in Borghese, Hypnos have now provided an induction session, re-issuing a selection of them on their Secret Sounds sublabel, <span style="font-style: italic;">Huronic Minor</span> being the first. Inspired by a great storm in 1913 in the Great Lakes region (Borghi is a Michigan man), in which The Huronic ran aground, the resulting piece of sonic impressionism is no affair of harsh noise representing the violence of elemental forces, but rather a collection of downcast ambient-space poetics evoking emotional suspension. This is a journey into the tense uncertainties of before and the chilled numbness of afterward with a prediminant motion of slow drift, stretching out slowly, expanding without moving forward, breathing, swelling, relenting. It recalls other Borghi works such as <span style="font-style: italic;">The Phantom Light</span> in its blend of ambient’s textural minimalism and space music’s thematic motifs. Like Slo.bor Media sidekick Jason Sloan and one-time collaborator Aidan Baker, Borghi is endowed with an ability to meld shadow-dwelling guitar and delicate synth effusions into suggestive drone-shapes, sometimes with a discreet neo-industrial edge (delicately droning, not Troum-atic). “Gray Dawn Illumination” travels furthest away from Hypnos’s customary ambit of ambient into shipwrecked Mystery Sea zones pursued by Vidna Obmana’s ghost. Equally spectral is “Point aux Barques”, which maps out a forlorn vista in which movements are contaminated by the residue of previous surges leaving a caché of dissonance. It’s steeped in the remote devastation and soul-void of disaster aftermath, pervaded by a hollow sense of something lost. Though <span style="font-style: italic;">Huronic Minor</span> stays on the still and lulling side, subtle shifts in tone and mood are revealed, from poignant-placid (“Leaving the Gates of the Open Harbor”) to wistful-sombre (“November's Peculiar Calm”) and on to the uneasy haunting (“Point Aux Barques”) and renewal dawning of “Red Sky Morning”. <span style="font-weight:bold;">ALAN LOCKETT</span> • <a href="http://www.hypnos.com/">www.hypnos.com</a><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhWeCGgbqwZBf4VgNrARljfmmGbSbD2hNeWegdGbEdFX25FFnln0W5jAdCOlbq2e0pssmeWvrBgcamXhzlcSwOChQIYMR1pv0sO4xOU-Nay3LbO7p528lfvh539tVQvDKLePcsEIHjUQwAo/s1600-h/eluderthemostbeautifulbluesmall.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhWeCGgbqwZBf4VgNrARljfmmGbSbD2hNeWegdGbEdFX25FFnln0W5jAdCOlbq2e0pssmeWvrBgcamXhzlcSwOChQIYMR1pv0sO4xOU-Nay3LbO7p528lfvh539tVQvDKLePcsEIHjUQwAo/s200/eluderthemostbeautifulbluesmall.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5250745774151770850" border="0" /></a> Look it up and etymology will give you a clue [<span style="font-style: italic;">elude - avoid or escape by dexterity (vb.)</span>], proposing <span>Eluder</span> [<span style="font-style: italic;">-lud-/-lus-</span>] as a dextrous escapist. Persuasive, since, transposed to musicianly context, the careful choreography of retreat and remotion is what Patrick Benolkin is about. So you won’t be surprised when walls within and without come down, dissolved by the drift inside <span style="font-style: italic;">The Most Beautiful Blue</span>. The spectral soundfields of grey dimly charted by (free netlabel) debut <span style="font-style: italic;">Warm Warning</span>’s doleful drones and wan washes are opened up into miles-deep inner-zones, as under Infraction’s curation true textural colours come through. Of the label’s fellow-drifters, Eluder’s discreet field work and timbral questing place him closest to the “grex” methodologies of Adam Pacione, or perhaps a more abstract carpenter in an annexe to the sawdust and smoke-rooms frequented by Milieu. But Eluder music is characterised not by the sound of the bucolic or sylvan, or even the underground, but rather the submarine. From the very start, with opener “Autumn Hips”, it’s all indigo pads in plumes of static spray, from the murky harmony in ultramarine of “Dusk Invites the Dark” to the particulate shimmer of “Brand New Eyes”, all sluiced in a sprinkler of DATmospheres. Other exhibits include “Milemarker”, which manoeuvres a stratum of translucent tones over a patina of gruzz, fizz and nocturnal nature-hum, making like Modell/Mantra mixing up the ‘binaural processing’ medicine. And “Via Starlight” too, which sees the artist drawing euphonic vapour trails out over the horizon into a piece of celestial geometry, playing both astral draughtsman and Gas-man. A final rhapsody in eponymous hue comes in a two-move gambit: “Sea Swallows”, stretching grainy tone trails richly bristling with decay-drops over a smouldering core, seguing to the closing lowlight paean voiced in reverberant tonal exhalations from the deep, the Big, <span style="font-style: italic;">The Most Beautiful Blue</span>. In sum, the will-to-escape finds an effective scenographer in Eluder, who offers here a sonic solution in which thoughts, mirroring the music’s mood movements, may dissolve, float free, and finally submerge, without fear of being taken down. <span style="font-weight:bold;">ALAN LOCKETT</span> • <a href="http://www.infractionrecords.com/">www.infractionrecords.com</a><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj2J8-h_FgdaqqLmweZyKqc6ee2sY4wirKowOYYiknEoejc2hzbxWD95qVd2Bq7dznfXzAOEriVNP6ik6ei5pAZ9crnXos4XLN49mIm4CARJQB64ecMeIhbofM0r6y_ghujlZe3HrQFpWGO/s1600-h/parks+umber.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj2J8-h_FgdaqqLmweZyKqc6ee2sY4wirKowOYYiknEoejc2hzbxWD95qVd2Bq7dznfXzAOEriVNP6ik6ei5pAZ9crnXos4XLN49mIm4CARJQB64ecMeIhbofM0r6y_ghujlZe3HrQFpWGO/s200/parks+umber.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5250746379293506610" border="0" /></a> Infraction has over the last few years quietly come to occupy a position as one of our most accomplished ambient labels. An early predilection for the outer limits of experimental and eclectic (Zammuto, Colin Potter, Beequeen, Andrew Liles) has gradually shifted towards differently replenished forms of harmonically-inflected ambient soundscapery (Beautumn, Kiln, Milieu). <span>Parks</span> may be seen as an addition to the canon. Originally conceived in Ambient’s Golden Years of the mid-90s, <span style="font-style: italic;">Umber</span>’s release was blighted by minimal distribution and a label collapse. It’s now been re-arranged and re-issued by Infraction, which seems a natural home in that, like fellow-Russian Beautumn’s pair of Infraction releases (<span style="font-style: italic;">White Coffee</span> and <span style="font-style: italic;">Northing</span>), Igor Bystrov draws on influences ranging from Vangelis, aspects of the Kosmische and space music traditions, the FAX label circa mid-90s, and ambient labels like Hypnos circa y2k time. <span style="font-style: italic;">Umber</span> is in fact something of a mixed bag, straying from Infraction’s more purist ambient ambit; like the shuffling locomotive beat lope at the heart of the miles-wide open-skied headnod of “The Breath Of Autumn”. Much warmth and nostalgic indulgence to be had among celestial swathes of analogue synth-string of “The Blanket”) and the lush analogue, digital, and organic communings of “The Twilight”. Infraction central wisely choose to trim the excess off the original, two of the more over-ripe old fruits excised in favour of ‘new’ track, “Spheres”, a lovely elegiac piece of minimalist tonefloat, wherein emotion lies long and longing lingers. All in all, a good spot by the Ohio crew; gristly in parts but with enough meat to merit re-heat. <span style="font-weight:bold;">ALAN LOCKETT</span> • <a href="http://www.infractionrecords.com/">www.infractionrecords.com</a><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhh3SKimToK2ul1thD4DB9CeQnfnlY9Q_utioftObm6LzvJg4qb4etaAZSlQUml6o0K1V0AajMhq2C8nES_YX3A-Gc4cm1PDkONBEv-_DsHBlLrCDaaVbYgFm-rOWRHbQ9Yk6Fy-nE8LbJr/s1600-h/milieuawarmwoodensmaller.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhh3SKimToK2ul1thD4DB9CeQnfnlY9Q_utioftObm6LzvJg4qb4etaAZSlQUml6o0K1V0AajMhq2C8nES_YX3A-Gc4cm1PDkONBEv-_DsHBlLrCDaaVbYgFm-rOWRHbQ9Yk6Fy-nE8LbJr/s200/milieuawarmwoodensmaller.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5250746378637091234" border="0" /></a> On to <span style="font-style: italic;">A Warm Wooden Hollow</span>, following up Brian Grainger’s first <span>Milieu</span> release on Infraction, 2005’s <span style="font-style: italic;">Beyond the Sea Lies the Stars</span>. There he deployed loops harvested from orchestral vinyl to build a wonderfully weathered wind-tunnel suite. On <span style="font-style: italic;">AWWH</span>, loops remain pronounced, as does the sonic bleaching, but this time self-generated melodies are threaded through, and the sound palette is populated more by pianos and organs, and the odd captured harp. Packaging is all pretty in pastoral, and slightly warped psychedelia, not mere functional decoration, but imagistic linkage with audio-contents. In the interim between <span style="font-style: italic;">BtSLtS</span> and <span style="font-style: italic;">AWWH</span>, a plethora of Milieu releases have issued forth, many of them familiar downtempo IDM-fodder. <span style="font-style: italic;">AWWH</span>, however, is fished from the same gene pool as earlier ambient Milieu like <span style="font-style: italic;">Brother</span> and <span style="font-style: italic;">Gunkajima</span>, with synths, basses and field recordings predominating, along with traces of the lineage of guitar-scapes like <span style="font-style: italic;">Sun White Sun</span>. A kind of Ambient Milieu compendium, then - a decent enough concept, though ultimately falling short in realisation. Aside from “Written on Driftwood” - a truly beauteous and transportive 11 minutes of genuine ‘pop ambient’ - the material tends to the episodic, lacking the resonance of either <span style="font-style: italic;">BtSLtS</span> or the best of self-released Milieu (cf. <span style="font-style: italic;">Of The Apple</span>). Flawed by a half-baked sketchy feel - the likes of “Pollen Cabin Poetry”, with its flaunting of that demo-tape front-room piano sound (cf. Goldmund, Library Tapes) and “The Decomposition Of Memory”, with its rustle-and-tap field-sourced motif that evokes only enervation. Relieved by “A Night Walk Clearing”, all downhome Reichian DIY-gamelan tinklings, and “Burnt Rust” and “Winter Decay”, artful textural drone pieces into which the ear feels genuinely drawn. Episodicity is not the problem with the closing “Inside the Sun”, but rather distension; at 18:15, it’s roughly 15 minutes longer than its unalluring textures merit. Compounded with a bonus 3” cd-r (ltd. to first 50 copies), <span style="font-style: italic;">Smokebuilder's Woodshop</span>, already departed to the ranks of the obtainable-only-on-eBay-for-an-arm-and-a-leg. No loss, though, for this woody matter is eminently pruneable; three slivers of sonic depletions comprising (i) sub-Budd plonking attended by ambient room noise, (ii) a few wisps of synth counterpoint, ending in descent with (iii) a yawning longueur of no-fi background hum and tone doodle. A familiar maxim is reversed to reveal that more is, in this case, less. <span style="font-weight:bold;">ALAN LOCKETT</span> • <a href="http://www.infractionrecords.com/">www.infractionrecords.com</a><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgmWhkuOYOKuQLiNDRIOAAu0lXLFOIr60vZ3_W1h7dLxzc_Y9M2H__uZcwjW-DwKr2rlc3F6UeeEQFkccj9DicdajHHe4MAKMGOaeA0hlj_NSakQSuX7up5xnBbVYKKm6p5OyY0ZHgnqXGW/s1600-h/movedbrunn2small.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgmWhkuOYOKuQLiNDRIOAAu0lXLFOIr60vZ3_W1h7dLxzc_Y9M2H__uZcwjW-DwKr2rlc3F6UeeEQFkccj9DicdajHHe4MAKMGOaeA0hlj_NSakQSuX7up5xnBbVYKKm6p5OyY0ZHgnqXGW/s200/movedbrunn2small.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5250746379607395682" border="0" /></a> Over the last decade and a half David Moufang (<span>Move D</span>) has been involved with so many projects in an overlapping array of sub-genres it’s been gratifyingly hard to pigeon-hole him. And his polymorphous inclination serves him increasingly well. <span style="font-style: italic;">Songs from the Beehive</span> sees him draw on his past to spool out various permutations of techno, house, and ambient, not to mention a sneaky looping take on drone and sideways-on allusions to jazz. Sidekick <span>Benjamin Brunn</span> has already shown himself (on the two’s first collab on Bine, <span style="font-style: italic;">Let’s Call it a Day</span>) to be a perfect foil for D’s moves, facilitating him in expressing himself, bringing out more, say, than is evidenced on numerous, better-known, and still ongoing Fax file exchanges with Pete Namlook. Most of these tracks sprawl beyond the 10-minute mark, starting off with static and slack clicks before accruing momentum and winding out into fully-fledged expression. Take the opening “Love the One You're With”, which gradually unfolds from a hazy suspension of samples and audio-babble to take on a discreetly jacking deep techno habit, cycling engrossingly from one axis-shifting breakdown to the next, each new section taking on new sonic passengers, as the whole opens up micro-layers full of thrumming vibrations. Then “Velvet Paws” is all over you, soft keys washed in ice-cool liquids taking on multifunctional rhythmic, textural and melodic roles. After this deep-diving dual opening gambit, the recent 12” single choice, “Honey”, strikes as almost throwaway—a pop at the same target as the Isolée of Lost, and a more obvious groove-centric track that is just a little too in love with the admittedly winsome play of its overweaning squelch ’n’ burp acid-inflected synth riff. There is much more to follow, though, and the appealing ebb and flow of Moufang and Brunn’s choreographing ensures constant refresh, never afraid to withhold those obvious "whump whump" kick ’n’ click pleasures, to allow the surrounding air to sing with remote drones and float-tones. This is in fact a recording which succeeds more than just about anything tagged "ambient techno" (how quaint now) in melding the Earth of repetitive beats with the Air of ambient drift and drone. <span style="font-weight:bold;">ALAN LOCKETT</span> • <a href="http://www.smallville-records.com/">www.smallville-records.com</a><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjEPMzKi1_KSAZ0tMHYMkzDUimCSWCRf28bYJg9iGBAhfijx0nRBRoqhvJemfCORsGcUYFT-krkHh9bMlJCs-lAI0Jr-FpDFBJ0j11LSgPeSaw7lHrFwZLSLO9SETIeVpgrfj5DtHK_HtXn/s1600-h/nicolaratti.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjEPMzKi1_KSAZ0tMHYMkzDUimCSWCRf28bYJg9iGBAhfijx0nRBRoqhvJemfCORsGcUYFT-krkHh9bMlJCs-lAI0Jr-FpDFBJ0j11LSgPeSaw7lHrFwZLSLO9SETIeVpgrfj5DtHK_HtXn/s200/nicolaratti.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5250746383502995010" border="0" /></a> <span>Nicola Ratti</span> seems lodged in a bit of a half-world on <span style="font-style: italic;">From the Desert Came Saltwater</span>. His blurb-scribe’s Big Idea is to tag it “Subtractive Rock”, and hope this cryptic clue will pique rather than puzzle. Once you hear it, though, you’ll get the subtractive drift in context, though the rock part seems largely otiose (unless the "rock" itself is understood as being subtracted). Like a sentence with nouns and verbs intact but adjectives and adverbs removed, the grammar of this music is deliberately impoverished, leaving here a skeletal strum, there a spidery scratch of guitar to keep the homefire minimally poked, if not stoked; far from burning, anyway. Peripheral hiss, close-miked micro-patter and sub-vocals play around the edges, suggestive of a sort of substance which is ultimately errant. Yep, that’s ‘subtractive’. Compared with the majority of contemporary electro-acoustic works, <span style="font-style: italic;">From the Desert...</span> is of a more naturalistic organic bent in terms of its treatments, eschewing any undue fragmentation and processing in favour of accentuating inherent characteristics of the instruments’ sounding spectrum. The prevailing feeling of this collection, though, is one of erasure, or perhaps deferral, with tensions created and expectations denied or placed on hold, Ratti toying around the edges of form. Guitar figures prominently, the lightly amplified instrument manhandled gently into rapid passes and soft attacks. Underneath a plain somewhat scrappy surface lies a microworld of furtive rummagings and ruminations, mumbled vocalizing, almost-glitches, bass dunks, vague suspensions of gestural atmospherics, occasionally enlivened by tonal bursts before rapid return to zero. Hard, though, to drink quenchingly of the saltwater from this desert of sound, possessed though it is of a certain spartan audio-vision. Its dryness of articulation may yet appeal to the more ascetic of electro-acoustic enthusiasts, but ultimately it is all gesture and tease, a bloodless strip show of shadow puppets. <span style="font-weight:bold;">ALAN LOCKETT</span> • <a href="http://www.anticipaterecordings.com/">www.anticipaterecordings.com </a><l><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjpI5kqOq-eQRBD2xf3SCYR4b98OVD8_BnxaRDQ8_UOaxv751cKzRzIERCgk1Huv3trRpAvdrhOhyphenhyphenvySslcwwdEG1oNtWd355yAKv_10cJiqh_YdBBQu8A-UG6Ya_zfiGBm5UZdmLZ78f6Y/s1600-h/2562aerialsmall.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjpI5kqOq-eQRBD2xf3SCYR4b98OVD8_BnxaRDQ8_UOaxv751cKzRzIERCgk1Huv3trRpAvdrhOhyphenhyphenvySslcwwdEG1oNtWd355yAKv_10cJiqh_YdBBQu8A-UG6Ya_zfiGBm5UZdmLZ78f6Y/s200/2562aerialsmall.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5250743034317158146" border="0" /></a>The leap from 12" to full-length is large for the club-sprung producer-DJ. Dutch Dub-stepper, Dave Huisman, throws his hat into the ring following recent extended outings from the likes of Burial, Benga, Scuba, Geiom, and Pinch.<span style="font-style: italic;"> <span>Aerial</span></span><span style="font-weight: bold;">, </span>his debut album as <span>2562</span> (his postcode in The Hague), comes after a trail of 12”s touted in all the right bass-places. 2562 has been aligned with the likes of Peverelist and Shackleton, practitioners who sneak around at the peripheries of dubstep, making looting forays into the environs of minimal techno and the edges of experimental. The 4/4-referencing jack-thump of “Morvern” and the wibbly-wobbly bass grandstander, “Techno Dread”, suggest that Huismans is looking to mix it with the mnml-ists as much as shuffling with the 2-steppers. Opening statement, “Redux”, also alludes just as much to a post-Pole sound~scape as to a notional Bristol-London axis. Like another rising star of this inherently hybridising genre, Martyn, Huismans is from the Netherlands, and as such operates far enough beyond the UK purview to allow him to exercise a less prescribed remodelling of a range of outfits spun from threads previously exhibited on club catwalks from Bristol to Berlin. Though parts of <span style="font-style: italic;">Aerial</span> feel like 2562 is stepping back to the roots of dub—“Moog Dub”, for example, sees a Nu-dub variant ushered in—it’s only this track and the digi-dubby “Basin Dub” that dress in these emperor’s new clothes. Four tracks from his 12” releases reappear here, and from these templates <span style="font-style: italic;">Aerial</span> proceeds without forging much in the way of new forms, largely preferring to withhold the kickdrum-thunk of techno in favour of growling and/or wobbling floor-quake bass propulsion. More brittle and percussive and surface-skimming than the depth-plumbings of the likes of dub-techno practitioners like Deepchord and Quantec, 2562 can seem a little too much like a brittle pizza, one with a great crispy thin base but not much topping to moisten it. However, when Huismans gets it right, as on “Greyscale” and “Enforcers”, with their delay-drizzled and reverb-doused pads, scatter-shot percussives, and dub-sprays of echo-static misting the peripheries, the kinetic force is fully felt. All in all, it offers a <span style="font-style: italic;">fresh</span>, rather than new, spin on drum ’n’ space in which bass is definitely the place. <span style="font-weight:bold;">ALAN LOCKETT</span> • <a href="http://www.myspace.com/tectonicrecordings">www.myspace.com/tectonicrecordings</a></l>Darren Bergstein (Editor/Publisher)http://www.blogger.com/profile/03979361482585766858noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4680931152558950057.post-16773790627595406382008-09-26T16:15:00.004-04:002008-10-02T11:40:02.885-04:00Installment 17<span style="font-weight:bold;">STEVE ROACH<br />A Deeper Silence (Timeroom Editions)<br />Landmass (Timeroom Editions)<br />Empetus (Projekt)<br /></span><br />Listening to <span style="font-style:italic;">A Deeper Silence</span>, cochlea bathing in its luxuriant fathoms, begs contemplation regarding the inexorable march of time, particularly as this year’s already slipped into the eve of its final quarter; in fact, speaking in senses both chronological and philosophical, notions of time, of fleeting moments and indelible memories, thread the conduit binding Steve Roach’s first handful of 2008 releases. There’s a simultaneous longing and exuberance across the span of these three recordings—embracing things past and things current yet remaining anticipatory towards the future, Roach nevertheless recognizes the unerring arc of the circle. Dots are connected, lines are re-drawn and recalibrated, the ghosts of muses past beg for exorcism; amidst Roach’s work, time is truly the fire in which he burns. Sounds might rest temporarily, occupying relatively safe havens until their oasis is shattered by the next cyclonic statement, yet in Roach’s slipstream, psychotropic fulfillment comes from bridging the id of <span style="font-style:italic;">then</span> with the momentum of <span style="font-style:italic;">now</span>. It’s beginning to and back again.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhag2c_kuLQTFzjIXne_gT6DawK6Rpe94fYp63deh_BGdUYVNKxadQ9QqkAri60HR1giPjhtg8pe0rkbQ2SjNiIS61puot_XRmCfTnSZcergJutM5rDCnOa3lW4DaB6Tx7YEp19alcsO10/s1600-h/ADeeperSilence.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhag2c_kuLQTFzjIXne_gT6DawK6Rpe94fYp63deh_BGdUYVNKxadQ9QqkAri60HR1giPjhtg8pe0rkbQ2SjNiIS61puot_XRmCfTnSZcergJutM5rDCnOa3lW4DaB6Tx7YEp19alcsO10/s200/ADeeperSilence.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5250441223314709682" /></a>Out of the barest sliver of eclipsed sunlight illuminating the top of the front cover, an infinity symbol subtly emblazoned over the tray card’s near-blackest ever black, years bloom, flare, fade, and are reborn within the tableau of <span style="font-style:italic;">A Deeper Silence</span>. Ostensibly a continuation of the themes augured by 1987’s <span style="font-style:italic;">Structures from Silence</span> but allowed to naturally expand across a far longer bandwidth, when the soft machine tufts of <span style="font-style:italic;">A Deeper Silence</span> first emerge it’s as if they always existed, ready to unveil themselves to whomever chooses access. Like ancient solar winds, gravity thinning their entrails across limitless parsecs, the disc’s beauteous tones achieve a perfect symbiosis between reflection, sensation, and environment. “Immersive” these elastic, whispering filigree are, yes, but it’s a far different tenor (though the aesthetics are certainly shared) than that displayed on Roach’s earlier <span style="font-style:italic;">Immersion</span> series. On those 2007 recordings, Roach’s dronic maps availed themselves of braided, gelatinous, and indeed minimal, textures, eerie fugs of sound that engulfed you in startling ultraviolets. Play <span style="font-style:italic;">A Deeper Silence</span> in varying situations—as a preternatural listen, precursor to sleep, or perchance to dream—and each time its sparse opiate narcotizes different corners of the soul. A more profoundly introspective skein of sound, yielded via the “cold” ions of electronics, one would be challenged to find—embodying ambient music, in fact codifying Eno’s own behavioral maxim for such musics, the subtly insinuitive tow of <span style="font-style:italic;">A Deeper Silence</span> not only suspends memories, but left to its own devices, displaces the very flow of time itself.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgXBj884WVdlLDgA0hitkeOsHfBA4J8pq9hsrcctu01Wkq_2t6AeRccx8XoD9HOj9wLhGhFQOkeTu7RsQHr9nXlVUA6_xILbK8meRXKnBzxhxmKUij7rqaP3KBNk-YvvTGnv81Sh6FhUQE/s1600-h/Landmass.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgXBj884WVdlLDgA0hitkeOsHfBA4J8pq9hsrcctu01Wkq_2t6AeRccx8XoD9HOj9wLhGhFQOkeTu7RsQHr9nXlVUA6_xILbK8meRXKnBzxhxmKUij7rqaP3KBNk-YvvTGnv81Sh6FhUQE/s200/Landmass.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5250441654200805186" /></a>Reacting to the moment, indeed fabricating its template as the post-midnight hours drew out all sorts of internal phantasms, Roach’s fomentation of <span style="font-style:italic;">Landmass</span> out of a radio station’s sound booth speaks volumes about his regenerative gift for invention and application. While <span style="font-style:italic;">A Deeper Silence</span> opened up vast, unhurried spaces for disembodied traveling, <span style="font-style:italic;">Landmass</span> is a far more extroverted construct, six lengthy pieces of stormsurge and metamorphic resonance. Recorded live at WXPN studios in Philadelphia on the venerable Stars End radio show, <span style="font-style:italic;">Landmass</span> condenses a millennia’s energy of continental drift into one epoch-spanning force of nature. The breathtaking vistas that ribbon-wrap the digipak provide some total recall of their own—Roach’s collaboration with Kevin Braheny on <span style="font-style:italic;">Western Spaces</span>, imagery coveted from <span style="font-style:italic;">Dreamtime Return</span>—but rather than a historically assembled composite, <span style="font-style:italic;">Landmass</span> instead feels more like a statement of intent. And what a statement. Though the protean chord sweeps and abyssal ambiences incontrovertibly image-stamp this as a Roach album, there’s little in the way of repetitive motifs or overused passages; everything about this recording, from point of conception to execution of ideas, feels fresh, vibrant, cinematically rich. Roach’s choice of sound design, carved <span style="font-style:italic;">in situ</span>, is all the more dazzling for it: the chromium synths ratcheting-up tensions along a boiling sequencer front acts as the propellant enabling “Transmigration” amid a flurry of levitating pulses central to the record’s tingling spine. Track titles vividly depict what becomes electronic analog: indeed, soaring through “Cerulean Blue Sky Over a Seared Desert Wasteland” is no doubt abetted by its oxygenated rush of synthetic cloudbursts and interlocked, serpentine rhythms. “Monuments of Memory” and “Alluvial Plain” bear witness to the movements of geologic time, jettisoning the acrobatic thrall of sequencer so Roach can brush great swathes of plangent color across his desolate canvas. When he finally leaves <span style="font-style:italic;">Landmass</span>’s (and his host’s) excoriated territory behind with the appositely-titled “Stars Begin,” hushed drones, cast amongst the galaxies like grains of sand, seem to portend some kind of big bang; instead, they ebb discretely back into the void, forever primed for reawakening when next Roach decides to smite the power. <br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgwelYS1pDwIFVbetQYHvcS21i5Gr-7lLhYOBORkeH-YpKPCrXm0OLHh2C70m8vEM1qQmQKsfn3UiECxe_Tr7VfNGtHtwsokyPOGwKq4ehEIL_qkR7p9GyMghomNjo1QW2RG-8GMbJDe0U/s1600-h/Empetus2008.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgwelYS1pDwIFVbetQYHvcS21i5Gr-7lLhYOBORkeH-YpKPCrXm0OLHh2C70m8vEM1qQmQKsfn3UiECxe_Tr7VfNGtHtwsokyPOGwKq4ehEIL_qkR7p9GyMghomNjo1QW2RG-8GMbJDe0U/s200/Empetus2008.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5250441823424177426" /></a>With embers from 2007’s <span style="font-style:italic;">Arc of Passion</span> still unextinguished, vintage Klaus Schulze poised to hit the racks in early 2009 and far more circumspect artists errorizing the sequencer mainframe, there’s no better time than to revisit <span style="font-style:italic;">Empetus</span>, Roach’s 1986 sequencer-intensive follow-up to his earlier <span style="font-style:italic;">Now</span> and <span style="font-style:italic;">Traveller</span> sessions. Reissued as a two-disc set, its cover a bisection of fibre-optic kaleidoscopia catapulted as if through a particle accelerator, twenty-two years of retro-stylings and digital brinkmanship hasn’t rusted one bolt on<span style="font-style:italic;"> Empetus</span>’s die-hard chassis: if anything, its utter lack of irony or nostalgia serves to shore up the record’s totally distinctive, and bracing, architecture. Roach’s first true sequential masterwork remains seminal precisely because it handily acknowledges its source code without breaking bread with it. Sure, Schulzian parallels could be drawn by dearth of the comparable instrumentation involved, but <span style="font-style:italic;">Empetus</span> is truly that rare breed: a synth/sequencer album that doesn’t sound like any other, despite the malapropism so designating Roach one of the few then-emerging “West Coast” synth artists. <span style="font-style:italic;">Empetus</span> effectively crystallized a genre—these works aren’t mere Klaus encounters of a third kind. What’s held the album in such high esteem over the tide of years is it’s magnificently diverse patterning and impeccable arrangements. Sequences are turned inside out, twisted, corkscrewed; the elephantine synths of “Arrival” airburst overhead as they climax, as do the dizzying motifs that drive “Seeking” and “Merge.” “Twilight Heat” contains the kind of sprightly sequence that most bit-programmers would kill for, while the hypnotic acid-trance headrush of “Distance is Near” maxes out a near-perfect distillation of Berlin/California sensibilities. And “The Memory” could very well be one of Roach’s best ambient nuggets committed to disc, a languid decompression infused with diaphanous stillness and <span style="font-style:italic;">Quiet Music</span> melancholy. <br /><br />However, the ride doesn’t end there. As a way of clearly affirming that even in the early 80s, at the dawn of his career, he often transcended his influences, Roach produced a longform sequencer piece with fellow electronic artist Thomas Ronkin. Considered lost for years, Roach obtained the original tapes and appended them to the revived <span style="font-style:italic;">Empetus</span> package as a second disc labeled The Early Years. Consisting of two mammoth tracks, “Harmonia Mundi” (clocking in at 46-plus minutes), and “Release” (just under a half-hour in length), these enormously powerful, orgiastic blowouts, though definitely of their time (1982-83), still pummel the speaker fabric with earth-shaking ferocity. Totally analog, “Harmonia Mundi” is the sound of two gents locked in mortal electronic combat, wielding their synths like swords, hacking lesser soundbytes into mulch. Notes interlocked so closely their tightly-wound springs threaten implosion, synths galloping triumphantly over parched terrain, Roach and Ronkin tagteam on an extraordinary symphony of sequencercore. “Release” harkens back to Roach’s formulative upbringings splayed over the <span style="font-style:italic;">Now</span> and <span style="font-style:italic;">Traveler</span> releases, as he pirouettes his modular’s pliable contours across an atavistic dappling of spongeiform noises and varispeed rhythms. As a landmark album, <span style="font-style:italic;">Empetus</span> is beyond reproach—the inclusion of the Roach/Ronkin twin behemoths, rescued, <span style="font-style:italic;">ripped</span>, out of time, cements its legacy as one of the finest sequencer albums ever. These recordings quite rightly square the circle, bridging gaps separating decades and genre, the artist himself forging ahead, time’s great ennabler, built for the future. <span style="font-weight:bold;">DARREN BERGSTEIN</span> • <a href="http://www.steveroach.com">www.steveroach.com</a></span>Darren Bergstein (Editor/Publisher)http://www.blogger.com/profile/03979361482585766858noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4680931152558950057.post-7971447950254103472008-09-23T00:34:00.002-04:002008-09-30T22:37:45.024-04:00Installment 16 / U-Cover 2008 UpdateThese days the act of blinking is undertaken at the electronic music writer’s peril. For between start of downward and end of upward eyelid trajectory, U-Cover will almost certainly have put out an album (or at very least a 3” mini disc). In the space of nearly a year since your U-Covering scribe last surveyed the field, with an eye in particular to the limited CDR series (<a href="http://www.ei-mag.com/profile0014.php">www.ei-mag.com/profile0014.php</a> and previously <a href="http://www.ei-mag.com/profile0010.php">www.ei-mag.com/profile0010.php</a>), no less than twelve releases have been sneaked out by fiendish label supremo, Koen Lybaert. This obsessive audio-subversive, operating out of a Belgium bunker, is evidently on a mission to subjugate the musical world with his minimal electronica, experimental ambient, and IDM masterplan. A proposed update on U-Cover’s recent release activity, originally casually envisaged as a brief visit, thus now requires an extended sojourn. Your plucky reviewer sees it as his duty to provide a public service to the long-suffering keeper-uppers with this estimable but not uniformly vital series to do some sorting work with sheep/goats and wheat/chaff.<br /> <br />First up is David Newlyn, a newcomer to the label with previous releases on his own October Man (as well as Symbolic Interaction and Boltfish) imprint. <span style="font-style:italic;">Another Day Gone</span> is a collection of gentle solicitously crafted compositions comprised mainly of piano études and guitar pluckings with discreet digital embellishments, and the odd patter of soft downtempo beats. Field recordings from local locations in N.E. England are woven into uber-delicate electroacoustic settings, perhaps in the hope of adding some local colour to largely insipid material. This works well on “Grey And White Afternoon Light”, a quite beautiful study perched exquisitely in that sad-happy zone which has most resonance in this kind of music. A pity that this is the first time Newlyn seeks to prod his sonorities into a life less ordinary, by which time we are already halfway through the proceedings. However, the artist is nothing if not a proficient exponent of his chosen art, and if your boat is floated by wistful keyboard meanderings and soothing washes, you might find your day with <span style="font-style:italic;">Another Day Gone</span> is a day at least partially reclaimed.<br /> <br />Austrian trio Peter Kutin, Daniel Lercher and Florian Kindlinger make up Dirac, who deploy an array of intrumentation to foment a kind of post-millenial hybrid between microsound, film-thematics and the chamber tradition of post-rock (distilled to remove rock traces). On <span style="font-style:italic;">Untitled</span>, sombre drifts and muted minor-chord harmonics blend with audience laughter samples to render opener “Elysium” a surreal zone of twitchy ambience. The nearest touchstone would be to dwell on the quiet bits of Godspeed You! Black Emperor’s quiet/loud template, as dirac do most mimetically on “Cherubim”, the resemblance accentuated by Ivana Primorac’s cello and David Knauer’s e-viola scrapes. Elsewhere “Tar De Mah” begins with a dirge-like reflection on what sounds like pipe organ before opening out from mournful to elegiac. The sixteen-minute “Lysis” is a solemn drone church built of tone balletics between key- and string-driven things, around whose haunted environs play the sounds of unquiet in abrasive communion. Being a reissue of the group’s debut, this offers Lybaert the occasion to bundle in one of his more warped and submariner Ontayso remixes. Like Kutin’s previous solo work in this series, Dirac’s <span style="font-style:italic;">Untitled</span> eschews more conventional U-Cover prosaics for an intriguing, if somewhat gloom-laden, poetics.<br /> <br />Next up, Shunichiro Fujimoto from Tokyo operates under the Fjordne banner to cook up a delicate digitally-wrapped sushi comprised of freshly caught raw acoustics. Trailed as being based on two concepts of “sound texture” and “twisted time” (for which read "DSP"), <span style="font-style:italic;">Unmoving</span> is a collection of contemplative and shimmering soundscapes, wherein piano swirls and guitar twirls find fellow-feeling with folds and rhizomes of digi-tritus. Most notably, 10-minute centerpiece “Tick Away From Awake” harnesses a pattering glitch-rain to drench its strumming acoustics, while hazy pianistics vie with marimba tonks and tinkles on “A Book to Read.” Fjordne, for all his Oval-shaped glitch fiddles, is no fierce errorist beast, but a warm-hearted pup playing gently with the aesthetics of failure to add some fizz to his otherwise docile sonics, sounding as if he’d be most at home on the twee side of the 12k tracks, close to kinsman Fourcolor, or perhaps his fellow-countrylabel, Plop. As if to defy such pigeonholing, the vaporous “Falling to the Ground” ends the album in an almost willfully blissed out ambient drone epic.<br /> <br />On to Dutch artist Fomatic, who started making music using C64-trackers, and was clearly raised on a computer-made music diet that, while providing sufficient sustenance for compositional efficacy, may have stunted his musical growth. <span style="font-style:italic;">Inflow</span> is melodic pop-electronica of the downtempo variety that will have no doubt found its way onto the crib-chill last.fm playlist of graphic designers and young IT-boys everywhere. He may well have been “inspired by artists like Telefon Tel Aviv, Plaid, Secede, Boards of Canada, Autechre, Klute, Kettel”, but little has been done with his inspiration other than to channel its informing ingredients into a diluted miasma of negligible distinction that reminds that U-Cover’s niche was once not far from regulation issue IDM. Having graduated to more developed and diverse pursuits, the good Mr Lybaert would do well to guard against the easy lapse back into the Boltfish/Rednetic bargain basement school with facile purveyings of such nouveau easy listening fodder.<br /> <br />Tokyo-based Goro Watari has apparently been active in music since the 80s, though a documented background as guitarist in hardcore and metal bands is little in evidence on this assemblage of questing experimental minimalism, here simmered in post-rock stock, there drizzled with shoe-gaze glaze. Early on <span style="font-style:italic;">Hinode Tracks</span>, with “Era”, Watari finds common ground in harmonic drone experimentation between early-12k micro-isms and late-Kranky space dust. Reinforcing this, “Revt” has something of the Christopher Willits/Giuseppe Ielasi approach to guitar wrangling, a tranquil chord progression caught in conflagrante by an Ocean Fire-breathing laptop-dwelling noise-monster, pulling you down into a fascinating vortex. “Joya C” hosts slow-burning smears of (guitar?) tones spreading-cum-squalling across the upper realms underpinned by a densely heaving bass rumble. “Joya D” surprises with an assertive 4/4 technoid thump to ground the liquefying metallics of its guitar folds and synth tucks, before giving way again to the drone-swathes and bloopery of “Palse”. The quasi-Muslimgauze excursion, “Tortoise and me in kotatsu”, finds Watari intriguingly pushing an opiate drone-haze into a clattering Arabesque percussion den and standing back to watch the fun. “Pix”, however, prefers to make a woozy Kom-pakt with the listener, allowing thick swathes of a distant relative of Markus Guentner’s infinite synth to drift densely across the soundfield. <span style="font-style:italic;">Hinode Tracks</span> is easily one of the most impressive and texturally exploratory releases of this whole series.<br /> <br />Pausing only to draw breath before descending into the <span style="font-style:italic;">Phosphoresence</span> of Koen Daigaku, known to his local postman as Shimizu Kei. There is no background available on this artist’s previous exploits, but let the record reflect that he dredges up the deepest of deep and abraded tones and choreographs them into a veritable nightsweat ambiance that reminds of the darker moments of Gas with loopy intimations of Basinskian disintegration. The sound fabric threatens to burst at times under the surge and thrum of its severely compressed and remodelled fragments, seemingly filched from classical music quietude and press-ganged into service as Kei’s dark materials. Think a smudged and smeared realisation of a similar concept to Andrew Deutsch’s <span style="font-style:italic;">Loops Over Land</span>. Then think again. Maybe take Deutsch’s <span style="font-style:italic;">The Sun</span>, and place it in a fathoms-deep rusty bathyscape. Maybe then you’ll get close to imagining its remarkably corroded sub-aquatic sound. Particularities are otiose as its ten untitled individualities merge into a compelling whole, one whose homogeneity is somewhat spoilt by the addition of a remix by U-Cover house band Ontayso, which strikes as incongruous in the context of what precedes it.<br /> <br />After the fog clears, it’s Marihiko Hara who appears, out of Kyoto but seeming to have let some Chemnitz air get into his circuit boards; it’s not so much the German articulation of the entire titling and track listing of <span style="font-style:italic;">Reflexion, und dann, Metamorphose</span>, that suggests this, but rather the nature of his minimal audio-sculptures of glitchy drones with white noise bursts, some of which seem to lie in sputtering distance from Raster-Noton HQ, reminding of Ryoji Ikeda in particular. Hara choreographs processed piano and the like in sparse strata, introjecting reticent shards of buried half-melody, while whirrs and fizzes vie with skips and silences for brief entries onto the soundstage. The recording strikes, overall, as an episodic collection, resolutely electronically stamped with a machine-driven harshness. And for all its insertions of more human temperament, and inquiries into timbre and structure, its brittle and fragmentary ambiance is invariably more often ear-chafe than aural massage material.<br /> <br />And so to Oubys, nom de disque of Belgian Wannes Kolf, whose explorations are forged from a mix of live improvisations, electronic treatments and field recordings. <span style="font-style:italic;">Paths</span> is his debut album and bespeaks a grounding in all things krautly and kosmischely beautiful, with ambient irradiations from the Blessed Brian’s brainwaves. There’s a pleasing weight and density to this recording, first evidenced on “Toweringwindtowering”, which treads endlessly (well, ten minutes of endlessnessism) over a deep carpeted corridor leading from a late-vacated Cologne-fragranced room with a buzzer-nameplate bearing the legend W. Voigt. On “Mem” he stunt-doubles as Harold Budd reeling woozily from a shot too many. “Oubys” itself has Kolf unable to resist returning to the earlier mentioned room, and finding its air swimming with a shifting drone-fog of buried melodies, before ghosting through “Blue Caves” to a psyched-out downtempo beat-loop lope. “Inside Cloud” blows out steepling billows of grainy Heckerian cumulo-nimbus before it clears to reveal a becalmed final path in the shimmering drift of “Silent running”. The sheer expressive heft of Paths marks Oubys as one of the stand-out soundscapers of the whole U-Cover bunch.<br /> <br />Phasen is Ryan Parmer, a 19 years old musician from Orlando. Though seemingly a seasoned campaigner on the netlabel circuit, the self-titled album under scrutiny here is his official disc debut. The most striking aspect is the extent to which the influence of Boards of Canada, Milieu and a legion of similarly calibrated wibbly chill-tronica lies upon its pedestrian precincts. Unfortunately, not much else of merit lies upon it, since Parmer’s endowment is possessed of little spark or distinction. So what you get is a largely invariate slew of (resorting to press blurb prosaics for want of a music sufficient to massage a limp muse to life) “dreamy, soothing pads, light melodies, and catchy rhythms”. And not just one, but two phases of Phasen’s negligible development are reeled out here with <span style="font-style:italic;">Quarterlife Crisis</span>, a second full-length, following (not so) hot on its predecessor’s dragging heels. There is little pleasure and even less mileage to be had from documenting the smell of spent campfire headphases attending Phasen’s every tired step of the way through this loping synth-doodle and snoozing guitar-fiddle.<br /> <br />The Belgian Greenhouse label closed down after three releases, with Somni451’s album <span style="font-style:italic;">Probes and Prisms</span> barely distributed so U-Cover have stepped in to reclaim it for contemporaneity, so posterity can get a look in. Those familiar with Bernard Zwijzen's project from previous U-Cover outings (<span style="font-style:italic;">A Phosphorous Spot</span> and <span style="font-style:italic;">Vladivostok</span>) will immediately feel at home in the big soft electronic listening blanket of its tranquil pop-microsound infused minimal ambient-electronica. Rich tones and nagging patterns lullingly recur, with the odd voice, field recording and percussive tics and tucks. The sonic touchstones are still the same: the Kranky musings of such as Chihei Hatekayama and Christopher Bissonnette and the 12k of (especially) Shuttle 358 (“Chrome Yellow” and “Porthole 104”), with occasional cadences redolent of a Kompakt pop ambient-lite (“Probe”). There are, though, sufficient departures in sound source, as on “Sidetracked”, with its jazz-tinged saxophone loop, and newly appealing tweaks of the old template, such as “Outer Shell”’s melding of the patter of sticks and stones with a gorgeous tumble and trill of harp plucks, to make this an engaging ride.<br /> <br />Finally, we have <span style="font-style:italic;">Ylomejja</span>, by the Strom Noir project, under the curation of Slovakian Emil Mat’ko, who constructs flowing pieces of haunting, sometimes haunted, ambience from guitar loops and synths, adding detail with field recordings and sundry liminal sounds of otherness. Haunting, as in title track “Ylomejja”, a beauteous Enossified driftzone of resonating neon guitar plucks that outfold across the listening space. Haunted, as in “The Orbs”, which has the arcing lilt of a reverb-dripping motif slowly effaced by the cavernous resonance of overdriven echo. The same shadowy figures populate the psyched-out drone-blur that is “Nice to be here”. Ylomejja is strong on tenebrous atmospherics and a certain desolate drama effected by Mat’ko’s sombre poetry of movement and texture. Overall, however, a certain sameness of sound design means the album as a whole falls just short of attaining the heights initially promised, though it’s helped in this case by an addendum in the form of a 15-minute Ontayso remix, a slow and low trance-mission which sees “Planet Catcher” spirited away to a different darkside domain of shifting and tilting pitch-shifted soundplates.<br /> <br />Overall then, it’s what we’ve come to expect from U-Cover, a mixture of the totally compelling, the occasionally intriguing, the just so, and the ho-hum. The best is up there with the best of any major electronic label, and the rest is a question of sub-genre predilections. Oh...and I just blinked and yet more releases have leapt into being—seems you can never quite have U-Cover covered... <span style="font-weight:bold;">ALAN LOCKETT</span> • <a href="http://www.u-cover.com">www.u-cover.com</a>Darren Bergstein (Editor/Publisher)http://www.blogger.com/profile/03979361482585766858noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4680931152558950057.post-84196414674401624132008-09-22T23:23:00.000-04:002008-09-22T23:49:52.863-04:00Back in business<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial;">After a lengthy hiatus, I'm pleased to announce that Audio Verité will begin regular updates once again, starting with Alan Lockett's mini-overview/update on the Belgium U-Cover label. So watch this space... </span>Darren Bergstein (Editor/Publisher)http://www.blogger.com/profile/03979361482585766858noreply@blogger.com1