>>> Key
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>> My ears were tricked. There are times while I am listening with headphones and I think that peripheral ambience creeps into my ears and mixes with a recording – but this time, the outdoor sounds – those of tires on highways – were part of the work. The audio quality in the recording is so strangely mixed, it’s almost like experiencing some type of movie theater surround sound. This chugs away filled with vast atonality and an inebriating buzzing drone. There are familiar windy sounds of coastal drifts and wind chimes, creaking woods and variant echoes. But just when you’re sitting tight, basking in the romanticism of all the natural organics of the outdoors, the high pitched white noise mix sheds the top layer revealing a more precocious reality. Are we living on a heap of nuclearized uranium? The metal detecting counters seem to be going mythically wild here on Murmer’s (Patrick McGinley) latest release. This is a serious player in the world of sound research who has been quietly working at it for several years. The mood is queasy and cautious, recognizing that the actual source recordings from these sessions (1999-2003) came from a 600 gallon tank of water, Turkish football and elevator shafts among other peculiar spaces.
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>> In eighteen short tracks Andrew Duke renews my faith in the world of slow-mo techno with a foot (and a half) in sounds less understood. Duke takes apart beats to the umpteenth degree on tracks like the poker-faced “Mortal” and the chirpingly shrill “2fwd1bwd.” This is like a micronized, haunted dancehall record, filled with passion for phantom static in all its inherent warm nostalgia. The rampantly channeled “Fuel” zips fleetingly from ear to ear. One might venture to deem this a personal recording, in its depth it goes off course every now and then, seeming more journal-based than a straight shot of pure sound for someone else’s ears. Though this makes for an interesting guide into the mind of a mad genius in the making. Take Nothing for Granted invites its audience into secret spaces harboring some real, raw fixtures upon which are built some incredible decibels.
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>> Troum have truly developed this series like fine art. Tjukurrpa is the equivalent of an aural locomotive in one ear, while acting as a psychedelic elixir in the other. How can the power of sound be designed to be disturbingly curious and larger than life? Ask Glit[S]ch and Baraka[H] who after disbanding their legendary industrial/ambient project Maeror Tri in 1996 have since branched out into a significant niche, a sound territory of their own. The recording is deftly wide in scope and dark in every corner, almost tribally spiritual, having more in common with Gamelan than Black Sabbath, but there is a furious (if not totally understated) nod to the latter’s “Iron Man” on the bass boom of “Orphne.” This is one of those rare records that only rolls around once a decade and is worshipped by too few, misunderstood, and out of its era to some. One thing is for sure; when a disc simulates the physical manifestations of a Cecil Taylor live concert something is perfectly trembling in my soul.
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>> The duo known as Beanfield invites multiple featured vocalists on their latest Seek. On “Tides” the Morcheeba-like Bajka croons as light, flamenco rhythms piece together this moderately languid, latinesque lounge piece. The tracks “Chosen,” “Close to You,” and “Someone Like You” include watered down vocals by Ernesto, only given credence when background vocals are applied – but besides being eerily reminiscent of “wanna-be” singers on shows like American Idol there is not much weight to his limp soul searching. Though when he plays more like part of the background as on “Kiss” he appeals as part of the greater flow of this intentional bubblegum, contemporary slacker pop. The instrumental “Mr. Park” could be defined as dreaming on a brightly colored merry-go-round in broad daylight while listening to Miles Davis’ early 70s records on your iPod. It is just that joyful – almost Hallmark card unrealistic in its pastel washes of guitar-based rhapsody. The restrained funk becoming a trademark of German label Compost is clearly decadent on the crisp and catchy “Home” (again with Bajka). By far, the standout track on Seek is the percussive “Welcome” which utilizes the harmonic crooning of Marzenka to great effect. Not only is the tune totally funky, its use of chilling down the tones and minimal vocal sampling is quite, well, welcome!
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>> Cold and enigmatic textures like a fog rolling in at the cusp of a shadow, so goes the opening track, “Swinging London.” Big sound from a duo that paints pictures contorted between the worlds of Pink Floyd and High Rise (I am sure they could also be likely compared to contemporaries E.A.R. or Godspeed! You Black Emperor) – in other words, monster guitars. This is the Godzilla-like younger brother mutation of these references, however. Big bass blur with a cobra-like slither and a sonic drone core. From wall of noise to distinctive sad distortions Buried on Bunker Hill (hey, that’s my old neighborhood guys!) is a pure atmospheric outing, almost in the classic sense of how noise gets developed in various segments. The final “Only Peace” is the pale ambient, unpredictable one in the batch, but makes a great escape. There’s a lot of revving here from a duo who have been playing live and experimenting since ’94. Fan the flames!
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>> Squeaky, off-kilter rambling funky fun jittery beats might start to describe Leeds-based duo and mixers Team Doyobi (Chris Gladwin, Alex Peverett). There are skittering slapstick moments when it sounds like someone has stepped on an animated cat’s tail, and others when you may imagine an Iron Maiden record being spun backwards. Nonetheless, these cats rip it up, but this is a standard in IDM, no new ground is broken. So what you say! To cut a long story short, yeah, I guess if you want to get your groove on this may be the meal ticket, nourishing your well so(u)led feet. Broken up into units of beats and measures Choose Your Own Adventure is paste-up heaven – just remember to dry clean your wings first. Mid way through, the disc offers a theatrical intermission with truncated thriller soundtracks and reflections of lowercase chords. From thereon the snap-to-grid tactics turn to stone. Suddenly a buzz of synthetic tones steer their penchant to digitize atonal frequencies with lopsided unconsciousness. Until of course we take a micro-hip-hop ride on track 7, and so it goes until the toy synths crash and burn to the bitter end, but that may be another story. Phew.
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>> Six-piece German collective Kammerflimmer Kollektief are on to something life-size on Cicadidae, their third full-length blending orchestral harmonies, guitars and countless electronic techniques to this lush recording. If you were to merge and filter Tricky, the Freight Elevator Quartet and contemporary bluegrass you may start to feel the vibe. Liquid rhythm saturated in Wim Wenders-like cinematic austerity. The six men behind this operation of blistering syncopation are Heike Aumuller, Christopher Brunner, Dietrich Foth, Johannes Frisch, Thoman Weber and Heinke Wendelin. The percussion is based in jazz, and couldn’t sound better against its tapestry of crisp electronics, wind instruments and an assortment of tonal shifts as heard on “…denn Nacht ist jetzt schon bald!” There are moments on the effectively pop “Eiderdaunen (gerupft)” where the tempo harkens the arrival of a crooning mysterio like Dave Gahan, but no one ever shows up to the mic. With a sound that owes much to properties of improvisation, Cicadidae manages to remain exceptionally focused on the finer elements of its cadence rather than its chance resonance.
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>> This is an unusual find, a pre-release of an unsigned artist and disc that is already circulating. I guess it’s a privilege to be one of the first people on the block to have access to something like this. The Boucher EP is a collection of twelve electronic tracks, each shorter than 5 minutes in length. Rainwater, who is also a DJ, has a few previous credits, including two tracks on a Toshoklabs compilation and soundtrack work for an award winning Sundance Festival film called Bullet in the Brain (2000), which also included partial scores by James Plotkin and Calla. The atmosphere is meticulously spatial and uses both industrial and tribal/urban sounds. He even threw in a marching band and voiceovers from some big ‘ole train depot. As this is not the final production, my copy has some weird glitches, but what is apparent is his sensitivity for combining incidental voice happenings and systematic beat passages. Here’s looking forward to the finished product!
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>> By using the sole sound source of Elvin Drake’s song of the same name, Mem (Kamil Antosiewicz) takes It Was A Very Good Year to a sublime level. This is the ultimate post-modernization of icon Frank Sinatra’s famed classic. Though, except for some basic chord lines, the original is initially transparent from Mem’s subversion of the brooding hit record. You might imagine a psychedelic Phantom of the Opera using his upright as a medium to bore a void for a transcontinental underground tunnel. This is a really challenging listen, more academic than playful. Though the liner card does include the original lyrics, it still doesn’t make you feel like humming along. Antosiewicz calls it “an essence of the essence,” and to that I say touché! An unnerving and thought-provoking hour of manipulated surrealism.
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>> Digital visionary Pep (Pep Karsten) not only does design services for this release, he also cracks the seal of N-Rec’s Levitate with “A New Place.” The piece uses sounds that simulate bells and telephones to chilling effect, in the way Andrew Lagowski’s S.E.T.I. project does. German-born, Parisian-based Sogar (Jürgen Heckel ) joins Sebastien Rioux for a romp they call “Californiabouncing.” As you count sheep, here we have a multi-tiered and dizzying recycle to last night’s castles in the sky – patterned and fluffy, like Monet’s cathedrals through another layer of gauze. Russian COH’s twelve-minute “Sleepair (Board 737 Brussels-Sthlm, 28.01.01 17:41)” is more a documentary travelogue that is channel-mixed and laden with the bass of jet fuel. “Formerself” by label head Cylens is a collection of teeny sine tones (ala Bernard Gunther, Richard Chartier, Noto). Its restricted dragging and embryonic examination make each miniscule sound pop like an arsenal of undersized marbles. Main (Robert Hampson) makes “Interspace,” an instant jettison into a vast universe. The cabin pressure is arid; the atmosphere is plagued with finite debris from pure obscurity; the tones are mellow drones and the static is active. Also includes minimalist electric sketches by Plimplim, Frederic Nogray, E-DI and Mokira. Though Fabriquedecouleurs’ “Coeur Des Paons” steals the greatest moment here while he assists the landing of this levitating craft with a spirited work that glistens like gems, messing with high scale micro-tones and Pita vs. Vert playfulness. Levitate is, hands-down, the most coherent and truly eclectic, micro-electronics compilation I’ve heard in the last year.
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>> Texture Maps is the latest Steve Roach dream-layered, ambient effort with scores of drifting harmonics and tranquil voids. Somehow the track “Gray and Purple” illuminates and illustrates its title radiantly, a 21-minute piece of long and sultry gradations in drowsy acoustics. This is a pure sci-fi soundtrack, deserts on Mars, rings of stratosphere, elemental shifts, lost satellites and the like of life out there. For best use try “Time Maps” with a side of astral hypnotism and interplanetary massage for a true transcendental experience.
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