 |
|
Mike Shiflet, "Llanos"
While I have always associated Shiflet with his harsher noise output, his work goes much deeper than that, and this self-released album demonstrates his versatility. His synthesis of harsh noise, droning textures, and hidden melodies showcases a careful equilibrium that he retains throughout.
Shiflet is also known for his graphic design work (he's responsible for the iconic continuity of recent Intransitive Records releases), so it's not surprising that his audio works retain a similar sense of care and restraint to his visual arts, pushing boundaries but with the caution and consideration of an artist.This is even more overt on Llanos, as he juggles three different, often disparate styles seemingly with ease.
The opening "Antrim" exemplifies this, mixing a chirping mechanical drone, buried, stuttering guitar melodies, and a bit of raw noise that never reaches an abrasive point.It’s a beautiful combination, with the static drone elements, the dynamic melodies, and the chaos of noise living together in perfect harmony.
The long "Pink Meadow" uses its duration to create a more diverse composition, slowly building up from filtered static into subtle changes and variations, adding in what sounds like distant field recordings and soft, melodic tones that eventually outpace the static, allowing the musical elements to overtake.While shorter, the title track allows things to go the other way, throwing a distant malfunctioning television together with a bit of digital noise.In comparision to the other tracks, this one errs a bit more on the side of noise, but only ever so slightly, continuing to balance the different sounds beautifully.
The second half of the album has a different, more somber mood in my opinion, with the abrasive squawking electronics of "Sunbathers" obscuring a dark musical drone.The short "Web Over Glen Echo" strips away most of the noise moments in lieu of a filmic ambience, with muted tones audible in a far off corner."Gunpowder (For Raglani)" also relies on sad tones that are amongst a layer of varying static, cyclic melodies that are offset by the slightly abrasive noises.It builds to a sense of hypnotic repetition that becomes soothing and relaxing, but still allows a variety of subtle and varying sonic textures to be heard.
In his description of the disc, Shiflet's quote "the noise and the music have made peace" couldn't be a more concise descriptor for this album.It's not an easy endeavor, in my opinion, to work in these very different contexts without leaning too heavily into one side or another, but here it seems to be done with ease.Llanos is an album in which subtlety and beauty can, and should be enjoyed by all adherents to the genres he works within.
samples:
 
