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Illusion of Safety, "Probe"
Back before he joined Sonic Youth and became an avant rock elder statesman, Jim O'Rourke played in Illusion of Safety with Dan Burke, who has continued the project since his then-partner went all big time. Here, one of those mid-period releases is reissued and remastered, bringing the 18 year old release on Staalplaat back into the economy, and demonstrating how both artists were on the top of their game compositionally even back then.
A recurring theme throughout these four untitled tracks is a constant shift in dynamics, juxtaposing extremely quiet moments of electronic drift with sharp, caustic blasts of noise, and subtle field recordings.The first piece begins with what sounds like an air conditioner duct drone that eventually shapes into some semblance of rhythm, with sharp sheets of noise and crackles, before immediately transitioning into a massive orchestral blast that is allowed to slowly reverberate off into silence, with only the ghost of a hum far off in the mix.Stuttering pieces of more traditional electronic music and kids talking jovially appear before another orchestral detonation occurs.Finally, towards its closing moments a high register warbling tone becomes more and more obnoxious, eventually dueting with a low frequency thump.This on its own actually wouldn’t be out of place on an early Whitehouse album, but the cut into ostensibly a field recording in a dive bar, complete with Skynyrd's "Simple Man" playing in the background, certainly wouldn’t.
The second, long piece is cut from a similar cloth, opening with almost silence before an explosion of heavy electronics, and then back to quiet drone.The pattern continues, albeit irregularly, bringing in dogs barking, malfunctioning TVs, and vacuum cleaner noises to cut between the extremely quiet electronic menace that continues throughout, eventually putting chiming bells and a droning piano together before ending on a violent, piercing noise outburst.Track three puts jackhammers atop low frequency synth tones, found sound rattling, and analog synth noise, all around a deep pool of silence.
The shorter closing track brings the field recording elements that are sprinkled about into full focus, initially creating a minimal drone from the sounds of passing cars before launching into a traffic jam, replete with angry honking horns and revving engines, but then cuts to a quiet recording of nature, mixing the urban sprawl with the pastoral countryside.But, rather than ending on this overt juxtaposition, the duo instead decide to bring in jabs of industrial drum machine percussion and theme park music to bring things to an end.Considering the previous 18 some minutes of odd combinations and unpredictability, it’s a very fitting conclusion.
Illusion of Safety is clearly Dan Burke's baby, and here he shows his strengths in developing both industrial tinged noise along with collage elements, but O’Rourke's touch isn’t one to be ignored either, showing that the duo worked together to develop this sonic environment in which they both lived.Originally an edition of 500 copies, it's great that the label saw fit to introduce it to a whole new audience, many of who have probably heard of IoS, but never listened.Well, here’s a chance to.
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