Fluorescent Grey :: Lying On The Floor… (Isolate, CD)

Reminiscent of some of the cultural snapshots released on Sublime Frequencies, Martin mashes Indian ragas, Tibetan drones, Japanese flute and woodblock, Chinese strings and other equally exotic styles together into break-beat missives that explode like Kundalini raptures up and down your spinal column. “Kabuki Drum & Bass” is a taiko drum remix, a Kodo performance digitally bent back on itself; while “Indian Classical Beat Sliced and Sauteéd” speeds a raga up until the notes nearly trip over themselves. “A Peruvian Shaman Sits Down to Make IDM On His Laptop” is filled with digitized bird call, jaguar coughs and the groaning undulation of bone sticks rubbed against the pliable bark of rubber trees—nature sourced and dumped into ProTools where it is transformed into a claustrophobic tribal dance. Though, “undanceably” IDM in the end. Naturally.

Elsewhere, Martin deconstructs purely digital concepts, turning “IDM” on its ear by making it aquatic limbo music (“Liquified Break-Dancing”) or extended glitch percolations (the ten minute “Crackly Shell”). Or it is traditional instrumentation that gets the chop, as in “Study for Live Drums and Piano Quantization (Pompous Academic Generic Experimental Title).” Reality gets slippery for Martin as drum beats stutter and piano notes bend and warp. His subversion of the organic source material makes for digitally awkward and arresting music. The “Morphing Song” is anchored by a rock-steady beat but the melodies leer and twist as they are stretched from their child-like simplicity into dark melancholia and strained despair.

It’s a sonic brain dump, a vomitous mass of noise and rhythm and appropriated cultural melodies. You either listen to it or you ignore it; it functions either way. The longer you let Lying On The Floor Mingling With God in a Tijuana Motel Room Next Door to a Veterinary Supply Store play, the more you appreciate the cleverness of Martin’s choice of name. Fluorescent Grey is the un-choice (you know, neither black nor white) intruding itself upon your consciousness. By virtue of containing everything, Fluorescent Grey may actually sound like nothing. It’s a clever trick—being so visibly invisible—and I find myself continually discovering new facets of this record.

Lying On The Floor Mingling With God in a Tijuana Motel Room Next Door to a Veterinary Supply Store is out now on Isolate.