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Charlemagne Palestine, "Four Manifestations On Six Elements"
Some of Palestine's gorgeous drones are now transferred to CD and remastered by Lee Ranaldo and Thomas Koner for the Netherlands-based Barooni label. The two have done a great job too: the sound is crystal clear. This opens with 20 minutes of near static drones and tones in "Two-Fifths".
 
It's so stripped bare that for a while it seems like he's just made a steady electronic pulse, but after a few minutes of saturation, waves and other half-heard fragments start appearing. He uses the piano to create a similar saturation effect on the next two, "One+Two+Three Fifths" and "Sliding Fifths," which relentlessly pound out a mass of sound. His insane ability to play about four rhythms at once keeps the music from ever drifting into the background. After the 40+ minutes of superb piano punishing, the closing electronic drone of "Three Fifths" is a little too empty and sparse to hold my attention. Most of the music here is so stripped down that it's hardly there at all, but there's a lot of strange things going on under the surface.
 
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