(05.05.06) Shulman’s second release for Aleph Zero strengthens the label’s
position as a fine purveyor of intelligent world chill. Random
Thoughts, which comes off as anything but a collection of random
bits, takes a holistic view on the rhythms of the world as source
material. Liberally scattering Pan-Asian instrumentation, Goa Trance
motifs, European chill techniques, Indian rhythms, Middle-Eastern
vibes and Oceanic atmospherics across nine tracks, Shulman spins the
listener around the world in the course of an hour.
In “OMG,” big synthesizer chords pile up to the heavens (wild open
skies and all) and robust drum programming gambols like a herd of
giraffes across the veldt while a male voice sings a wordless song of
yearning. “Zero Degrees” hums with several types of woodwind
instruments (flutes and things that sound like they’ve got six dozen
reeds in them) while a vaporous angelic voice lilts in the background
and a laconic Spanish-style guitar noddles over percolating beats. A
collaboration between fellow Aleph Zero artist Bluetech results in
“Midnight Bloom,” a whirlpool of melodies and glittering notes, a
nocturnal pastorale that would awaken Morpheus’ roses.
“Look Honey It’s the Vitties!!!” is the closest the duo veer into IDM
territory. While a jazz lounge piano chords its way across the sonic
field, a clustered beat-bomb is deconstructed on stage — beats
scattering and cracking with mathematical randomness. Voices,
back-masked and dropped in from mysterious radio signals, provide
bridges that lead back to themselves. It’s a jazz loop that bends
Mobius-like through tesseracted beat-chaos space. “I Dive” undulates
and squirms beneath siren diva Lee Triffon — a full-on vocal track
that should stick out of the instrumental landscape like a bruised
thumb, but as her voice becomes a multi-layered wordless haunting, “I
Dive” is simply another sonic facet of the Shulman repertoire.
A couple of remixes slip by; the Shulman vibe applied to Israeli
trance artist Sub6, to French chill team Ethneogenic and salacious
remix of Turkey’s Omar Faruk Tekbilek. You almost have to be told the
middle third of the record is remix material because it so cleanly
meshes with the original Shulman tracks. Source material, again.
Grist for the worldwide ethno-vibe machine. Persian pipes and
hand-drums build a subtle sandstorm with “Ya Bouy,” a rhythmic
construction that is tweaked and dubbed by studio wizardry until it is
stretched so that it fits around a swirling series of synthesizer tone
poems.
Shulman claim these are random tracks that have been collecting over
the past year, piling up without a plan or focus, but man, they sure
seem to flow into an hour of blissful head-trance. They find the
syncronistic sweet spot of diverse ethnic sources well, making a
homogeneous blend that doesn’t smother any of the individual
instruments and motifs.
Random Thoughts is out now on Aleph Zero.
