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Pixel, "The Drive"
Conceptually being the audio equivalent of a cross-country drive through North America, this Danish artist combines the somewhat contradictory sonic elements of guitar amplifier hum and feedback with purely digital synthesized tones and rhythms to unique effect, creating a contrast that is not as stark as one would expect.
The dull hum of a guitar amp that opens "+28° 35 42.88 -80° 37 13.02" is a clear parallel to the sound of an old car motor, swelling up and down while traveling along the imaginary road, which is ironic since those coordinates put it somewhere in far eastern Florida…which is mostly flat. Regardless, the motor sounds eventually meet a restrained bass thump that later resembles a heart beat. When the engine stops, deep organ like notes dominate the mix, occasionally being supplanted by the engines again, with a crackly static rhythm kicking in towards the end.
Transitioning into the second piece, "+43° 35 43.44 -114° 51 11.09," we are somewhere in the middle of nowhere in Idaho, and the sound is more high frequency static and feedback this time. A simple kick drum rhythm and eventually a beat that’s squarely in the "glitch" camp comes in, the swells of amp buzz are more warmer and organic than before.
It’s not until we’re in western Utah ("+40° 11 35.63 -112° 52 31.90") that we end up locked in a solid rhythm, which is far more constant and solid than the delicate ones prior, with the amp swells providing the organic counterpoint to the digital rhythms. A solid rhythm reemerges in "+40° 42 24.12 -73° 59 51.82," which is the most forceful and powerful sounding track, sometimes fragments of what may be actual guitar swell up and fall away. The more raucous sound makes sense, as we’re about halfway across the Brooklyn Bridge at this point.
We end on quiet shards of feedback and miniature click rhythms, all in favor of the louder and more prominent "guitar amplifier as car engine" textures, which are alternatingly cut sharply by the more rhythmic passages, slowly coming to an end at "+53° 47 33.66 -99° 43 57.61," pulling us through the remote, icy parts of northern Manitoba.
Describing an album as an “audio journey” is cliché at best, and purely lazy at worst, but here it is to apropos to not describe, as it is the underlying concept of this disc. Like such a long journey, the individual tracks shift wildly throughout, never locking into a singular texture or tone but instead a drastic and dynamic change all throughout. Thankfully, Jon Egeskov decided to excise things like driving through the Midwest, with all of its mundane cornfields and barren landscapes, and focusing on the more varied elements of a journey across North America.
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