If the current batch of digital noise esoterica is really something you listen through rather than to, then Pimmon’s new record represents one of the high water marks of the entire field. Twelve tracks given titles that just reek of microchips (‘rotate_1’, ‘not_PATH’, ‘%macro.end’), ‘Assembler’ sounds like nothing so much as the very process of interruption, of mp3 files glitching on a bad connection (the record is meant to be heard in conjunction with a number of mp3 files).
Flickering shards of distortion and static cast dark shadows over stately, graceful passages of brass and fuzzy, distant drone, scrambling their reception. It’s like listening to chamber music from the other side of the Asteroid Belt. Occasionally, the menacing haze opens up to allow rare glimpses of light to bathe the surroundings, like the movingly celestial ‘repeat’, and it is moments of respite like this which give the record an oddly poignant air.
Whereas Pita and Fennesz are happy to let thunderous noise dictate the terrain of their discs, Pimmon seems more interested in teasing listeners with a series of dreamy, near-tangible pictures of serenity, hidden tantalisingly out of reach behind a veil of sonic wreckage. Certainly one of the most effective ambient records in some time.
-John Gibson
