Texan Rick Reed is a true multi-instrumentalist of
experimental traditions. His primary
compositions, for sine wave, short-wave and Moog, represent mastery of the
texturally-intense, sculptural minimalism nowadays crunched down from the Powerbook
table.
Reed’s droning, crackling, lulling, screeching patchworks
become as aurally-demanding as a Hecker or a Pita, while projecting also an
out-of-the-box bigness and a vaguely psychedelic warmth, or a frayed (as opposed
to diced or pixilated) edge that is, to my ears, very unique . The music here is not straight drone, or as
uni-directional as that word might imply; it does not creep long, plunge deep,
or run up towards abandon. Pure tones,
static loops, and granulated washes collect and regress to form a looming mass
of nearly symphonic austere sound bites, conjuring the spirit of writhing,
head-cleaning “noise” music but projecting a cleaner vision, a high-lonesome,
spectral conglomerate of disembodied machines.
The sound is spacious and arch-ful, though never fully quiet, as if
there is continual off-site energy blowing through so that all lost is
replaced, reflected, or refracted through a brilliant sensitivity to texture
and pitch. Field recordings, violin, and
the familiar guitar of Keith Rowe avoid becoming focus and instead evolve
within the mix, rounding out the organism of Reed’s compositions, the
hyper-real connectedness of such
shrill and singularly uninviting tones and waves. Dark
Skies At Noon is hands-down the best release of any Reed involvement that
I’ve heard, and, in a limited pressing of 328, it is something to be treasured.
samples:
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