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Eleh, "Floating Frequencies/Intuitive Synthesis"
The second outing on compact disc for the anonymous minimalist Eleh compiles three out of print, vinyl-only releases. The eight pieces that make up the Floating Frequencies/Intuitive Synthesis have been tarted up for a digital release and they sound unbelievably good. While there is no new material included, these discs make for essential listening either for Eleh die hards or for those without turntables who have been wondering what all the fuss was about.
 
While part of Eleh’s mystique has been their almost complete adherence to an analogue body of work (only the album Location Momentum on Touch Records broke the mold by appearing on CD), this has lead to an ever-inflating auction market for their limited edition releases. As each of these albums have been going for excessive prices on the second hand market so it is great to finally be able to listen to the entire Floating Frequencies/Intuitive Synthesis trilogy without destroying my wallet. Eleh has remastered the three albums for the digital format, insisting that this is an alternative and not a replacement for the original vinyl releases.
As I only have one of these LPs (the third one), I have not been able to do a full comparison between the vinyl and CDs. However, based on the third disc alone, I would say that the CDs are an improvement on the originals. Granted, the CD misses out on the patterns on the grooves formed by the regular sound waves but sonically I feel this is a superior format for this sort of music. With no surface noise, the tones push through the speakers unimpeded; the clarity required by such precise and detailed sound cannot be achieved with vinyl. For the record, I have never been fully convinced by the argument that vinyl is in any way superior to CD as either format can be sublime or awful. I certainly feel for music like this, CD is as sonically rich as vinyl but delivers a cleaner sound.
Focusing on the music at hand, there is a lot to be excited about here no matter what format it is stored on. The first disc begins with "In the Ear of the Gods" which is busy enough for Eleh, with less emphasis on pure tones and more on the textures and ranges of the various instruments being used. It is the rest of disc one where Eleh’s distinctive sound comes into full fruition. The two pieces "Tone Phase 1" and "Tone Phase 2" both use oscillators and guitar as the source material with Eleh pulling exacting and controlled drones from them. The result can be assimilated in multiple ways; at low volumes or on headphones, it is possible to experience the sounds as warm, ambient soundscapes. However, turning up the volume dial on the stereo allows the interactions between the different frequencies to become noticeable. The beating between the frequencies forms an irresistible beat which breaks apart the idea of this being only drone music as Eleh uses the mathematical underpinnings of the sounds as sound sources in themselves.
These ideas are expanded further on the two other discs in the set with each disc taking different elements of this heavy minimalism and exploring them in greater depth. Here the interplay between the constituents of the sounds is like a kaleidoscope for the ears; Eleh’s dedications to La Monte Young, Charlemagne Palestine and Pauline Oliveros on the original vinyl versions of Floating Frequencies/Intuitive Synthesis are not empty gestures. Eleh takes the same theoretical or ideological approaches as each of these cornerstones of minimalism and creates something new. "Black Mountain 1933" begins with a fat synth drone which very slowly becomes denser and denser to the point where it feels like there is nothing but the sound. Later, on the two parts of "Pulsing Study of 7 Sine Waves" Eleh imparts a steady rhythm on the music which is completely at odds with the constant hum of the previous piece. However, both pieces highlight the possibilities hidden within a finite number of tones.
The final disc finishes off the set with two beautiful pieces that condense all the experiments of the previous discs into a pair of powerful works. "Phase One: Sleeps Golden Drones Again" takes the same general structure of the "Pulsing Studies" and turns them into a crawling, treacly mass of sound. "Bass Pulse in Open Air" has a similarly weighty feel to it; at the right volume it causes the room to shudder and sing with the music. I listened to it in the car and my rear-view mirrors vibrated to the point where it looked like the cars behind me were made of liquid. The physical manifestation of these sounds is incredible.
On the note of physical manifestations of Eleh’s sound, the one thing missing from these stunning discs is the patterns formed in the grooves of the vinyl by the precision tones employed by Eleh. However, opening up the pieces in audio editing software reveals the visual beauty of these waveforms and to make up for the lack of these patterns on the discs, Eleh has used very attractive black card packaging and those futuristic-looking Mini-Max CDs (where the playable area is surrounded by a ring of clear plastic) to complete the Eleh aesthetic. Altogether, Floating Frequencies/Intuitive Synthesis more than lives up to the mythic status that Eleh has so quickly ascended to. This is easily the equal of any of the landmarks of drone music from La Monte Young’s sine wave pieces to Coil’s Time Machines. This is perfect music.
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