In the tradition of untitled releases from Francisco Lopez, #123 onceagain comes without artwork and consists of one long track with silenceboth at the beginning and end of the disc. Lopez went through greatlengths to record this disc, spending a year with other electronicartists (Aube, Carsten Nicolai, Martin Tetreault, [the user], JaapBlonk and many others) making recordings inside a silo in Montreal andthen finishing up the in Paris at the Iannis Xenakis Musical CreationCenter. The result? More impressive than your typical chin-scratchingreaction from groups of people who have always had designer bathroomsand certainly less insulting than Lopez' tribute to death metal. Afterabout one minute of dead silence, low pitched quiet sounds appear,resonate and slowly, slightly creep their way up the frequencyspectrum. After about ten minutes of this quietness, the somewhatrecognizably digitally edited sounds of grains and metal rhythmicallypulse and play with an interspresed silence. Before long, more soundsamples appear and sustain, replacing the silence with the hiss ofrunning grains, and a resonating gong-like hum and shimmer. Theintensity grows louder, louder, and louder until a frightening, violentcut. For the next thirteen minutes or so, all's quiet, or is it? Thedisplay levels register something but the frequency is so low, it'salmost completeley inaudible to the human ear. A thunderous rumblingfollows and crescendos for the remaining 24 minutes of the audibleportion of the track. The grand finale by which all sounds appear to beplaying at once. Every second gets more and more torturous andnightmarish until the cut. Relax your ears as the track ends with 16minutes of silence. In the end, while it was a charming audioadventure, I'm honestly only left with one question: where do all these"artists" get the money for these projects? -
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