Transmitter Park journeys a similar path to past SC-164 productions, the grit and gristle of industrial abandonment and the hollowing out of the human experience. This path is one of dark oblongs and inchoate polygons.
Greg Schappert returns to Subapical. The New Yorker opened the label’s doors back in 2017 under his SC-164 moniker, the darkened moods of Eastern District blackening speakers with angular shadows and audible menace. Now the Brooklyn musician is back, this time with five tracks for Transmitter Park.
“Past Dues” groans. Pressure and tension combine in this ambient introduction, a prologue of what is to come. The curiously titled “Walker’s Rights” follows. Terse drum patterns give way to smoke shrouded synths. Blurred in a haze, the track resonates and rumbles with a visceral energy as notes hover without ever making their true intent known. Schappert draws on the world of engines and motors for his influences, the clank of the assembly line and the cut of metal. This inspiration is plain to hear in the low growl underlying “Divide.” Above this hum spike slender shards of snare, a rhythm only being established near the half way point. The track is a strange sculpture, one that bulges and breaks into serrated shapes and forms. Despite the solitary nature of SC-164’s sound, there is a human quality behind his compositions. The machine is central, yes, but the man of the formula is far from hiding. The bass and rhythmic cracks of “Soles Walk” call on the sweat and stains of the club. Brooding, the B-Side opener boils under immense strain as an eerie lingering electro line haunts. The close comes with the ominously titled “Assault on Your Assembly.” Pincered percussion slices from the offset, razor edges lasers into lancing points. As in the previous pieces, the melody only unfolds beyond the midway point and reveals itself as a juddering shuddering bulwark of static and string.
Transmitter Park journeys a similar path to past SC-164 productions, the grit and gristle of industrial abandonment and the hollowing out of the human experience. This path is one of dark oblongs and inchoate polygons, of heaped tension and palpable paranoia. However, within these shades and shadows, these inked hues, lies a new hopefulness and, dare it be said, an optimism turned and spun in smooth aluminum and rough steel.
Transmitter Park is available on Subapical.
