Andy Dobson, a London (UK) producer had a great impact with his debut appearance on the Neurokinetic Compilation with the beautifully crafted and well executed “Drencrom.” Fast forward to 2002, with the debut release of 23:Things Fall Apart and you begin to realize how incredible music can make you feel. Described as Classical Minimalism meeting AI-era electronica nothing could be further from the truth. This time around, Digitonal is the collaborative force of Andy Dobson (Keys, Guitar), Samy Bishai (Violin), Callum Macmillan (Percussion) and Mark Pinheiro (Additional Electronics) incorporating organically enriched minimalism with just enough energy to nurture those emotional memories buried deep within.
“Come & Play” extracts the simplest of sounds—inspiring soothing images initiated by (live) violins wrapped around a lullaby melody and sharp percussive fragments. “Black Box” manages to persuade the listener into a darker atmospheric box where syncopated beats bounce and tumble from every direction –a light piano loop casually unfolds amongst a reoccurring scream. “Drencrom (Extended Version)” contains just the right amount of deep-space ambience loosely tied to peculiar tweaks, creative manipulations in sound deconstruction as well as a firm backbone of melodic bits and bytes to keep you absorbed for a full 8-minutes. The closing track,”Carcause,” acting as a companion piece to “Drencrom” takes invisible bits of AI-influenced landscapes and pastes them to a minimal foundation of melodies. “Seraphim,” “Overline” and “Breakbeat Phase” are probably three of the most genuine soundtrack inspired pieces on 23:Things Fall Apart. As if almost alive, the music on these three tracks are sincerely orchestrated and definitely bridge the gap between classical and digital productions.
23:Things Fall Apart accurately shows us that ambience cascading over an abundance of upbeat and emotional rhythms can really be an incredible experience.
With such an inspirational debut release, Digitonal has fast become an unmistakable highlight for the Toytronic roster. Highly recommended.
- Digitonal
- Toytronic
