It’s a vortex of unstable harmonics and whispering frequencies, built from minimal static and fractured melodies that seem to constantly evolve, folding in on themselves.
Like refracted light through cracked glass
Thirty-seven minutes of audio collage unravel and reconfigure on “Anhedral Skipstack,” a moniker of the endlessly inventive Australian sound-sculptor Tim Koch (Central Processing Unit, Merck, n5MD, deFocus, Aural Industries, U-Cover). Under his alias Ray Manta, Koch delivers a luminous, slow-burning piece that breathes with immersive intent—its architecture forming almost instantly, then continually breaking and reassembling like refracted light through cracked glass.
From the outset, the work shuffles voices and layered ambient structures in a way reminiscent of Oval, Fennesz, Kit Clayton, or Shuttle358—artists known for sculpting fragmented sonics into ethereal forms. Here, those scattered signals feel translucent, mutable, and just beyond comprehension, inviting deep listening as they shift, dissolve, and reform.
It’s a vortex of unstable harmonics and whispering frequencies, built from minimal static and fractured melodies that seem to constantly evolve, folding in on themselves. Around the 11-minute mark, the terrain subtly darkens—electrical voids open up, and voices become further eroded, spectral, reshaped into disjointed rhythms and abstract contours that writhe and distort.
Hypnotic repetition blurs ::
As “Anhedral Skipstack” progresses, its hypnotic repetition blurs the line between organic deterioration and intentional design. Faint echoes of conversation and forgotten media flicker like ghosts in the machine. The piece begins to spiral—embracing the aesthetics of musique concrète, degraded signal art, and decompositional technique. Snatches of found sound, decaying radio transmissions, and warped television noise surface briefly before being swallowed again.
Eventually, the composition disintegrates into a haunted stream of degraded V/Vm-like frequencies—a ghostly data field where noise and melody coexist in fragile harmony. It ends not with resolution, but with the impression of something once whole now echoing through a dreamlike, glitched-out ruin.
Anhedral Skipstack is available on DataDoor. [Bandcamp]
