De Benedictis has always resisted the lure of ancient genre sirens—be they Berlin School graduates, post-Eno acolytes, or hirsute New Agers—instead adopting a unique, individualist strategem where such recognizable elements are but kaleidoscopic effluvium scattered across a less-constrained palette.
A wild potpourri that alternately confounds, perplexes, and dazzles
In the first few opening seconds of “Neverheart,” the lead-off track on Dean De Benedictis’ superb new Surface 10 outing, a rush of applause erupts before it’s unceremoniously blasted to bits and bytes. This aural feint is but the first in a melange of tonal surprises that De Benedictis pulls off with no small measure of aplomb—this ain’t your grandfather’s standard-issue electronic music, no sir. That being said, the fact that the composer begins his new long-player with a track seemingly steeped in 60s Euro musique concrète, and the kind of experimental academia Morton Subotnick dabbles in, speaks volumes about the detours this deliciously unpredictable record takes.
The many brazen dissolves and foley edits “Neverheart” navigates across its cinematic six minutes are nothing short of breathtaking: randomized analog detritus spit and fizz across gothic storyboards, ghostly chorales beckon, Alan Parsons’s-esque guitar/keyboard licks peek their heads out for a brief, illustrious moment. More ideas are traversed in the tracks’s short timespan than most artists can convey during a CD’s eighty-minute maximum. De Benedictis has always resisted the lure of ancient genre sirens—be they Berlin School graduates, post-Eno acolytes, or hirsute New Agers—instead adopting a unique, individualist strategem where such recognizable elements are but kaleidoscopic effluvium scattered across a less-constrained palette. The lengthy, moogy pro forma of “Pre-realm” might well suggest abstract rubycon fantasias and purple irrlichts but the software appliqué De Benedictis smears across the dense sequencer bedrock colors outside the lines of any pat categorical references.
Randomized analog detritus ::
And damn if the composer doesn’t have an endless bag of tricks up his sleeve. “Azz” is a sound collage that somehow gene-splices Pierre Schaeffer, Aphex Twin, Mike Paradinas, and the pixelated glitch-enthused brethren of early aughts spiketronix in a near-cacophonic display of splattered, circuit-bent beauty. Beats are masticated and tossed to the four winds as vocal samples are quaked, quantized, and quashed; BPMs oscillate from wheezy drum ’n’ bass to frenetic Goa bloat and back; a whiff of 60s exotica, reincarnating the ghosts of Esquivel and beyond, pepper the gloaming. Pure cochleal sensation, a wild potpourri that alternately confounds, perplexes, and dazzles, for which the ideal ghosted copy of the successive “Universal Winter (Rework)” provides the velvety comedown, Vangelis-like piano tinklings reverbed into the infinite, airless night. Spin this exuberant slice of audio verité again and often, for such a requirement is de rigueur lest you only scratch the Surface.
A Stray Ending is available on DiN. [Bandcamp]
