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keith fullerton whitman, "playthroughs"
Right off the bat I want to get something off my chest: had I not been familiar with Whitman's work as Hrvatski nor trusting of the label Kranky, I would have been completely thrown off by the clinicization of music by the words "laptop," "ring modulators," "granular re-synthesis algorithms," "drone," "academic," and (especially) "Terry Riley" in the description on the web site. Seeing something like this is almost remeniscent of the magic of fucking nearly ruined by the overexplaination by a creepy teacher in a high school sex ed class. That said, the music on KFW's debut is alarmingly attention-commanding for a beat-less, lyric-free excursion.
Most strikingly, there is a beautiful sense of room-filling warmth on every one of the disc's five tracks, and thankfully Whitman is careful enough not to oversaturate each composition with sounds. Unlike a number of drone records, this disc is filled with songs which are just long enough to make their point clear and short enough to keep the record interesting as a whole. Even in the pulse-less opener, "Track3a," the music is set in motion much like the conflict of a film—with an enjoyable scenery background to a conflict which needs to be resolved. Thankfully the resolution comes in only a few minutes and the payoff is well worth the wait. "Feedback Zwei," on the other hand is set in motion by a steady pulse of an ear-tickling rhythm. Both that and "ACGTR SVP" build to noisy climaxes and quell, the latter piece much like the buzz of a heat bug in a sweltering late August day. "Modena" serves as a fantastic closer, as it is clearly remeniscent of Whitman's fantastic CD EP released last year, '21:30 for Acoustic Guitar,' almost completing the chapter in Whitman's output on guitar exploitation. Whether it's complete is yet to be seen, but if the Piano Concerto from 'Brain in the Wire' is any indication of what's next to come, I'll undoubtedly be listening.
 
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The Eye: RELOADED!
Ten years ago, Brainwashed.com launched The Eye, one of the first regular music oriented video features online. Over the years, close to 150 mini documentaries were produced from live and interview footage with some of the most innovative acts. In the last few weeks, the videos have been re-visited, re-mastered, and re-presented on YouTube. We're excited for the new resolution, sound, and clarity of these features, along with the portability afforded by YouTube. Over the next few weeks we will be randomly selecting features on the home page here of Brainwashed but you can always Start at the beginning and see where it takes you!
