Plenty of new music to be had this week from Laetitia Sadier and Storefront Church, Six Organs of Admittance, Able Noise, Yui Onodera, SML, Clinic Stars, Austyn Wohlers, Build Buildings, Zelienople, and Lea Thomas, plus some older tunes by Farah, Guy Blakeslee, Jessica Bailiff, and Richard H. Kirk.
Lake in Girdwood, Alaska by Johnny.
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Andrew Hock has carved out a niche for himself as a guitarist for bands including Psalm Zero and the recently deceased Castevet, but this makes for his first truly solo release. Crystalline Privative Opulence, featuring additional wind instrumentation by Jeremiah Cymerman and Davindar Singh, showcases his skill with a guitar as well as electronics but more so his sense of composition amongst these two side-long songs.
The first of the two untitled compositions begins quite simply, with melodic, basic guitar strums filling the air.It is sparse and clean, and he slowly expands the sound.The melancholy, yet pure guitar sound continues for a while before being quickly mixed with a quieter, but more dissonant and messy backing loop of processed guitar.At first the melodic sound continues, but then it is pulled down into the noisy mire of distortion and loops.
What first began as gentle chiming guitar soon becomes a din of harshness and chaos that is all engulfing.Hock begins to emphasize the electronics above all else, resulting in a piece that is much more violent than it began.Full on horror movie shrieks and bizarre warbling noises become the standard, and even what sounds like a swarm of killer bees are introduced to further conjure terror.
The piece on the other side of the tape is less oppressive or menacing in comparison.While the guitar was the predominant theme on the first half, here the focus is on ominous and distant electronics.Woodwinds generate deep foghorn tones expanding through the mist.Hock fleshes out the open, foggy space by reintroducing his guitar to the mix, clean and melodic strumming that contrasts the droning background exceptionally well.In a mirroring of the way the first piece was constructed, the electronics give way here for the elegant guitar work to take the focus.Eventually he introduces a second guitar line, with just enough distortion and effects to make for a great contrast to the otherwise pristine sound before ending with what sounds like a bass guitar passage.
Guitar and electronics are the primary sounds throughout Crystalline Privative Opulence, but it is the way Hock (and his two collaborators) put these sounds together that makes this tape memorable.The slow building of the compositions, as well as the deliberate shifts between electronics and guitar keep the sound intriguing.Texture and melody meld together wonderfully, resulting in two pieces that shift and evolve wonderfully on his first solo work.
Two of the three songs that comprise Fraufraulein's Extinguishment start with a single foundational sound. On "Whalebone in a Treeless Landscape," it is Anne Guthrie’s French horn that initiates the performance. Dripping water and the ring of a large, resonant metallophone follow immediately after. "My Left Hand, Your Right Hand" commences with a solitary, almost piercing electronic pitch, like an emergency broadcast signal stuck on a single wavering tone. After a few seconds, it is joined by an echoey snap, a distant singing voice, and the booming of a bass drum or a floor tom. They are both deceptively simple beginnings, richer in content and potential than their starkness implies. Billy Gomberg and Anne Guthrie treat them like seeds from which to grow and prune their compositions. They blend field recordings, of rain and a patriotic Norwegian parade for example, with scrapyard detritus, pair foghorn drones with the bristly friction of surface noise, and balance the eerie ambience of humming wires against a distorted monastic chant, all while maintaining a delicate connection with those first embryonic moments. The way they achieve that consonance and balance—between the acoustic and electronic instruments and in the structures of the songs themselves—defines the album.
Extinguishment’s macrocosmic inclination is set down during the course of its opening piece, "Convention of Moss." Like the songs that follow, it is cobbled together from a combination of prerecorded audio and live instrumentation. Differentiating between live and prerecorded can be tricky, however. In concert, Anne and Billy play French horn and bass guitar respectively and use various digital methods to record and manipulate their own sounds on the fly. Thus, the white noise generated by blowing through a detached valve becomes a loop-able and transformable sample.
Watching it happen in real time makes following the aural lineage of different passages easier, but on record there can be no such discernment. Without a visual aid, the entire album, from the perspective of the listener at home, sounds as if it could be a series of prerecorded tapes arranged with a computer. On the other hand, it is possible that much of what seems digitally achieved is actually the product of an extended technique utilized inside the studio, like drawing corrugated wire across the bell of the French horn. There is simply no way to tell. Confusion like this renders the music’s canvas more absorbent, and new and unexpected elements enter the fray with the same ease and acceptance as a loud guitar solo entering a rock ‘n’ roll song. That is a feature in a lot of improvised electronic music, but Gomberg and Guthrie handle it gracefully and add something of their own to the equation, namely the derivation of structure and development from tone color and melody.
As wide open as Extinguishment is with respect to material, purpose and control still subsists in the duo’s dedication to form and spaciousness. After establishing a core sound or a core melody, Anne and Billy toy with it, adding harmonious elements to emphasize some of its features and introducing discord for the sake of contrast and equilibrium. Reshaping, repurposing, and reimagining those musical events is the secret logic behind each song, something that is made perfectly clear on "My Left Hand, Your Right Hand." The title hints at the way in which Gomberg and Guthrie mirror each other and the contents of their field recordings. The song’s opening high tone is first blended into, then replaced by a droning vocal melody. Next comes a French horn and voice duet, a high resonant whistle, and eventually an undulating pitch that could be either synthetic or acoustic. Each figure mimics the last one, maintaining some semblance of identity with what has passed while at the same time pushing the performance forward. At times, the field recordings seem to be in tune with the instruments and the electronics too, resonating at the same frequency or within the same key even when they are quiet or empty (think of the harmonic resonance of Alvin Lucier’s I Am Sitting in a Room).
All of this gives the music a tangible three dimensional quality. Anne Guthrie and Billy Gomberg connect the world outside to the world of music in a way that must by now be familiar, but they do an exceptional job of it, utilizing their tools and techniques to magnify apparently simple musical elements (and non-musical ones, too, if that distinction still holds) to the size of universes.
While they differ quite a bit in scope, concept, and volume, Carsten Nicolai's Xerrox series is a long-running and intriguing digital parallel to William Basinski's analog experiments in tape decay, taking samples and using custom software to make copy upon copy until the original sounds are deteriorated into unrecognizability.  The theme for this particular volume is "towards space," which leaves the earthbound inspirations of the first two volumes far behind for a nostalgia-soaked fantasia on the science-fiction films and shows that Carsten fondly remembers from his childhood.  Unsurprisingly, that results in an album that sounds an awful lot like a soundtrack, but it is an unexpectedly poignant and curiously neo-classical one.
It is an old music critic trope that artists tend to become less special once they become competent enough at their craft to sound like the artists that they were always trying to emulate.That thought ran through my head a lot as I listened to this album, as I suspect that Nicolai always secretly wanted to be a soundtrack composer, but grudgingly wound up as a successfully conceptual artist/experimental musician instead.As it turns out, he has a knack for the former vocation, as the lush and melancholy faux-strings of album highlights "Xerrox Helm Transphaser" and "Xerrox Isola" call to mind some of Jóhann Jóhannsson’s better work.Elsewhere, however, Carsten veers into sci-fi-damaged heavy drone ("Xerrox Radieuse") or brooding, echoing dark ambient atmosphere ("Xerrox Mesophere").
Despite touching upon so many disparate stylistic veins, the album admirably maintains a consistent "haunted space station" feel that befits one of its primary inspirations: Tarkovsky's Solaris.The only catch is that I do not understand how the resultant music is related at all to the elaborate process used for its creation.  For the most part, Xerrox, Vol. 3 sounds like it could have easily been made with a synthesizer and a laptop, aside from a few especially hissing or sputtering textures–whether a chord was played on a keyboard or borrowed from a McDonald's commercial seems largely irrelevant here.  That does not diminish the album in any way, but it is odd that Carsten elected to make a somewhat straightforward album in such a complicated, concept-heavy way that does not seem to have noticeably informed the outcome.My guess is that he has just made exploiting chance and impersonal technology a life-choice and that he finds the constraint useful.
Another noteworthy aspect to Xerrox, Vol. 3 is that the most conventionally musical moments tend to be the best.I did not expect that.  While pieces like "Xerrox Helm Transphaser" certainly benefit from their gurgling, hissing, and crackling peripheral textures, the primary appeal lies in the warmly melancholy swells of appropriated strings.Carsten is at his best when he finds a strong balance between melodic hooks, texture, and entropy, which he does about a third of the time.The rest of the album is a bit less memorable, but that is primarily because he is aiming for a subdued and mysterious mood rather than due to any clumsiness or lack of good ideas.That makes Xerrox, Vol. 3 somewhat complicated for me, as it is a complete success as a complex and understated work that is alternately sublime, bittersweet, and forlorn.  That makes it a major leap forward for Carsten as a composer.  It also makes it an objective success from start to finish.
Subjectively, however, I have very mixed feelings about it.   I love the bleary, corroded Romanticism of "Xerrox Isola" and quavering beauty of "Xerrox Radieuse," both of which wildly exceeded my expectations.A few other pieces are quite good as well.Overall, however, Xerrox, Vol. 3 seems like a weirdly tame album to me–I like it for what it is, but it is a bit disappointing as a long-awaited Alva Noto album.I desperately wanted to like it more than I did.That said, my personal expectations are not Nicolai’s burden–he naturally made the album that he wanted rather than the album that I wanted.  In a couple of instances, those expectations overlap delightfully, but this is otherwise not the six-years-in-the-making tour de force that I was hoping for. However, I suspect that a lot of other people will rank this very highly within Carsten's discography and I cannot fault them for that at all–I am sure that their ears work fine.  This just is not the direction for me.
It is increasingly difficult to discuss Alex Cobb's career without invoking the name "Andrew Chalk," as the similarities between the two artists are impossible to miss.  For one, they both run fine record labels and they both make elegant, understated, and quiet albums.  More importantly, they both seem to share a curious drive to endlessly revisit the same stylistic thread in hopes of someday distilling it to absolute perfection.  That being the case, Chantepleure will absolutely not surprise anyone who has picked up any of Cobb's previous albums: it offers more of the same (which is quite good), but it is now a bit more sophisticated and nuanced than it was last time around.
The word "chantepleure" means to sing and cry at the same time, which makes a lot of sense in this case, as this is probably as close to an Alex Cobb "break-up album" as we are ever likely to get.  Cobb's turbulent state manifests itself quite compellingly and uniquely throughout Chantepleure, as his languorous, billowing drifts of treated guitar are almost always haunted by the subtle specter of dissonance, particularly on the opening album highlight "Prayer Ring."  The importance of those buried, slightly curdled notes cannot be overstated, as Cobb's warm, blissed-out tranquility otherwise rides the fine line separating "beautiful" from "dangerously pastoral."Cobb has found a way to artfully infuse his soft-focus dreaminess with just the merest hint of mystery and anguish, which is very tough balance to hit just right.
Cobb's execution is also superior.  On pieces like "Anselin," his shimmering clouds of edgeless, formless guitar heaven feel so natural that they seem like their own living, undulating entity than something coaxed out of an instrument by a human.Alex never lets his work become static or conspicuously composed; rather the fragile individual strands constantly swell, dissipate, wax, and wane to form a complex tapestry of tones, overtones, and shifting harmonies that remains in a deliciously constant state of flux.  That seamless, organic quality is what primarily keeps me coming back to his work.
If Chantepleure has any flaws, they are highly subjective ones.  As mentioned earlier, it is quite a serene album, which is definitely is not for everyone: the album’s side-long closing centerpiece, "Path of Appearance," for example, takes a very long time to betray even a hint of a darker undercurrent.  The other caveat is that Alex's artistry is so dependent on nuance and small-scale dynamic shifts that it can be very hard to get into without sufficient will and patience.  There is no overt power, melody, textural variation, simmering tension, rhythm, or dynamic arc to latch onto with any of these pieces, which would make them very boring in less skilled hands.  In Cobb's hands, however, such obvious "hooks" are absent because he is simply working on a different plane–Chantepleure is absolutely teeming with compelling small-scale harmonic activity, but it takes some focus and attention to detail to reap those rewards.  I always appreciate that in an album.  In its own small way, Chantepleure is a bulwark against an increasingly fast-paced and superficial world, reminding me that there is always hidden beauty in the world if I slow down enough to take notice.
Witness the latest rebirth of Campbell Kneale. It has happened before, and probably will again. This Wellington, NZ artist is on the forefront of the world noise scene, having cut his teeth for a decade in Birchville Cat Motel and more recently as Our Love Will Destroy the World. Carnivorous Rainbows is electronic music at its most relentless; four tracks of pure, hot skree constantly rebuilding like a viper’s unpredictable strike. Some percussion rattles throughout, a few instruments are arguably perceptible, and a beautiful harmony of intensity creates a gorgeous tapestry of sounds.
You can preview the track "Hades Iron Horizon" on Ba Da Bing's Soundcloud here.
In typically fine form, The Acid Mothers Temple and The Melting Pairaiso UFO have delivered another smoker to Important Records. Double LP pressed in an edition of 1000 copies.
Benzaiten is an In C-style homage to the the classic Osamu Kitajima record of the same name. The Acid Mothers Temple covers the title track and reprise using Kitajima's original composition as a departure point to explore the outer realms of AMT territory. Further instrumental explorations reveal textures of the original composition while launching out further into the cosmic domain. Numerous Acid Mothers original tracks are scattered in between. Benzaiten!
I had never heard Retribution Body before this album (which is a shame), but Aokigahara immediately got my attention for: 1.) being inspired by Japan's legendarily demon-haunted "suicide forest," and 2.) being released on the hyper-discriminating and oft-dormant Type label.  Also, it is a unique and near-great album.  Matthew Azevedo's singular drone performance/bass tone study has already drawn favorable comparisons to artists like Sunn O))) and Earth, but I actually see it much more in line with more formal electronic composers like Eliane Radigue, as it has a chiseled purity to it that feels very different than amplifier-worship (at times, anyway).  That said, Aokigahara is still quite heavy.
Matthew Azevedo does not have a typical "noise artist" pedigree, as he has a long career as a mastering engineer, as well as an academic background in acoustics research.  Usually I am not terribly interested in a musician's formal credentials (if not actively dismissive), but they are quite relevant in this case, as being knowledgeable about frequencies, mastering, and architectural acoustics is essential for an album devoted almost entirely to exploring the potential of oscillating bass frequencies.  Appropriately, Aokigahara is a site-specific work, as this recording was taken from a 2013 performance at Fisher Recital Hall in Lowell, MA.  Azevedo performed these two pieces using guitars, piano, and host of strategically placed microphones.  Given that origin, I suspect the album is a mere shadow of the actual performance, especially since I do not possess a stereo set-up with killer sub-woofers.  It is still quite an imposing shadow though, particularly when it sticks to just throbbing and oscillating bass tones.
The strongest parts tend to be the simplest, such as opening moments of "Sea of Trees," where Azevedo’s deep bass amorphously throbs, pulses, and plunges in a glacial rhythm.  It calls to mind an ominous spreading blackness, like slow-motion footage of an octopus's ink cloud.  Gradually, it pulls further apart structurally while increasing in power, ultimately evolving into an unexpected minimalist/neo-classical piano recital that sounds like it is happening as the entire world is being torn apart by a black hole.  Or maybe it just sounds like a mad genius playing a final discordant piano concerto in his subterranean lair as his castle collapses above him.  Either way, it is quite a singular aesthetic.
My other favorite part is the opening of "Sea of Stars," in which Azevedo violently disrupts a machine-like hum with jarring crunches and rumbles.  The rest of the piece is a bit more subdued (and better) than "Sea of Trees," intermittently resolving into passages of awesomely deep, rhythmic throb.  Those are the moments that I like best: just simple, pulsing elemental power.  As far as the album is concerned, I wish Azevedo had just stuck to that style of visceral, throbbing minimalism, as the more musical and/or maximalist bits seem like a dilution of what Aokigahara excels at, which is artfully using low-frequency power and oscillation for hypnotic, gut-level waves of force.  That said, I was not at Fisher Recital Hall and I imagine there is probably a lot to be said for the awesome building-leveling, speaker-destroying entropy that Azevedo's crescendos must have unleashed.  Consequently, Aokigahara's minor flaws are more a function of media and context than any sort of compositional failing, as these pieces were not intended to be heard on a record player in someone’s living room or an iPod in a car.  Also, they are only flaws in the sense that they prevent Aokigahara (the album) from being a stone-cold drone masterpiece.  Instead, it is merely a very original and satisfying document of what was almost certainly a stone-cold performance masterpiece.
Eric Quach has been producing works of experimental guitar and electronic drone for about a decade as thisquietarmy. His first full length album since last year's Rebirths, Anthems for Catharsis has as much weight and heaviness as its dramatic title would imply. A perfect balance of dissonance and beauty, the six songs elegantly drift from darkness to lightness, often within the confines of a single piece.
Quach's work on this record draws from nearly every genre that could be associated with the word "rock."Multitracked guitars stretch out in every direction; mixed with (or processed to sound like) synthesizers, all the while drum programming keeps things moving in a strict, yet memorable rhythm.Some of the bleakest moments appear on the opening "Ruminations":deep sustained guitar noise and a distant sound that sounds like monstrous banging on a metal door ensure the mood is anything but light.
Darkness abounds on "Masquerade" as well, via big, cavernous drums and heavy guitar squalls.Compared to many other points on the record there is a more dominant, forceful sound, but it comes in a slower, dirge-laden package.Even with this force, there are long, beautiful stretches of melody that result in a song with more depth than most heavy songs such as this would have.
The other pieces, however, tend to journey from dark to light passages within their self-contained duration.The slow and majestic "From Darkness Redux" is a gauzy mass of sustained guitar melodies and almost synth-like passages, buoyed by a forceful underlying rhythm.The sound is a perfect mix of dour and uplifting:a precarious balance done exceptionally well.The complex rhythms and layered melodies of "Accommodator" result in a similar structure, but with heavier drama and transitioning from dungeon darkness into soaring, beautiful heights.
The album’s final composition, "Closure," is the most fully realized and complex work on an extremely strong album.Beginning from a vast space of droning feedback and plinking noises via guitar, Quach builds the piece up, adding in what sounds like electronics and bent guitar sounds, resulting in a richer and very powerful mix.Finally, he piles on glistening, expansive tone to a powerful climax, ultimately stripping things down to end on a beautifully understated note.
Anthems for Catharsis is yet another masterwork from Eric Quach's thisquietarmy project.His ability to balance extreme moods is unparalleled, and this album beautifully drifts from both sides.Gorgeous melodies, metronomic rhythms, and complex atmospheres abound, but perhaps its strongest asset is the sense of composition.Rather than just collections of sounds or noises, these feel like actual songs, with a distinct flow and development, resulting in a brilliant record.
For years, Netherworld's Alessandro Tedeschi has been curating a label that has embraced the cold, frigid minimalism of electronic music. Now via a new sub-label imprint, Iceberg, he has changed the template a bit. While Glacial Movements was a fitting name for the slow drifts of expansive sound, Iceberg fits this debut as a more kinetic, aggressive, and in this case, beat oriented sound.
Abstract and sparse electronics still heavily feature in Tedeschi's sound throughout the five lengthy pieces that make up Zastrugi.However, while his previous works as Netherworld resulted largely in quiet tones and massive spaces, here there is more than just the inclusion of electronic rhythms.As a whole, there is a perceptible sense of depth to the album that makes it all the more engaging;A sense of space and almost architectural like structure to how almost tangible elements of the mix can be.
A piece such as "Mapsuk" might not be as harsh as some of the others here, but it also does not stay as minimalist as his previous work was.Dense, foghorn like bursts of tone appear, then are transformed into sonar-like pings and deep, cavernous beats.There is a lot of variety throughout, via unidentifiable and broken tones that make up the composition.Tedeschi buries the punchy kick drum far off in the distance on "Bergie Seltzer," with an oddly created white noise approximation for a snare drum adding additional accents.The second half is a bit noisier, but in a light and tasteful way. The concluding "Uikka" has the addition of what sounds like fragmented female vocals with a deep 909 kick.Something that potentially could be a sampled electric guitareven appears in the closing minutes to close the album on a harsher and more aggressive note.
The Glacial Movements label has been rekindling the short-lived isolationist sound movement since its inception, and now it seems that Iceberg is going to revive the minimalist techno sound that followed it.While I would have preferred a greater variation on the rhythms (the ones here stick mostly to the 4/4 kick variety), there is still more than enough diversity on Zastrugi to keep it engaging throughout its entire duration.
Young God Records is releasing a Deluxe 3 CD edition of SWANS debut album FILTH May 26 in North America; Mute releases this package in all other territories.
This 3CD expanded re-issue package constitutes a definitive picture of Swans in the years 1982 - 1983/4. Includes:
DISC ONE: SWANS original debut LP "Filth" from 1983, with the line up of M.Gira, Norman Westberg, Roli Mosimann, Harry Crosby, and Jonathan Kane. Also features versions of "Strip/Burn," "Heatsheet," "Blackout," "Clay Man," "Stay Here, and "Weakling," all recorded live.
DISC TWO: Body to Body material comprised of various studio out-takes and live recordings 1982-85, with a nine-minute version of "Raping a Slave," recorded live in Berlin, 1984 (originally released with FILTH on YGD-11).
DISC THREE: Debut 12" EP #1, originally released in 1982, Plus additional live performances from NYC and London.
The package features a 16 panels of previously unseen photos by Catherine Ceresole and Lee Ranaldo (Sonic Youth).
TRACK LISTINGS:
CD ONE: FILTH: 1. Stay Here (5:36) 2. Big Strong Boss (3:02) 3. Blackout (3:47) 4. Power for Power (5:52) 5. Freak (1:13) 6. Right Wrong (4:43) 7. Thank You (3:52) 8. Weakling (5:20) 9. Gang (3:24) 10. Live at The Kitchen, NYC 1982/3 (24:18): a. Strip/Burn b. Heatsheet c. Blackout d. Clay Man e. Stay Here f. Weakling
CD TWO: BODY TO BODY:: 1. Iʼll Cry for You (5:41) 2. Red Sheet (3:11) 3. Loop 33 (0:59) 4. Your Game (3:57) 5. Seal It Over (3:48) 6. Whore (3:56) 7. Weʼll Hang for That (3:55) 8.Half Life (3:57) 9. Loop 21 (1:26) 10. Get Out (3:31) 11. Job (5:40) 12. Loop 1 (1:01) 13. Mother, My Body Disgusts Me (4:43) 14. Cop (5:56) 15. Only I Can Hear, Only I Can Touch (2:41) 16. Thug (9:44) 17. Raping a Slave (live Berlin 1984) (9:02)
CD THREE: E.P. #1 PLUS LIVE RECORDINGS: 1. Laugh (4:00) 2. Speak (4:24) 3.Take Advantage (4:26) 4. Sensitive Skin (6:05) Live at CBGB NYC 1982-3: 5. Living Arms (---) 6. Howling Red Sheet (---) 7. Big Strong Boss (---) 8. Clay Man (---) 9. We'll Hang For That (---). Live at Heaven London 1984: 10. This is Mine (---) 11. Why Hide (---) 12. I Crawled (---)
ll words both CDs M.Gira. Music Gira/Swans. Contributing musicians Filth: M.Gira - bass, vocal, tapes; Norman Westberg - guitar; Roli Mosimann - drums, percussion; Harry Crosby - bass; Jonathan Kane - drums, percussion. Recorded 1983 Vanguard Studios, NYC . Engineer : Mark Berry. BTB CD is comprised of various studio out-takes and live recordings. Thanks to Catherine and Nicholas Ceresole for their contributions. The following performed live with Swans at one time or another in the years 1982 up to 1985: M.Gira, Norman Westberg, Sue Hanel, Roli Mosimann, Harry Crosby, Mojo, Jonathan Kane, Dan Braun, Thurston Moore, Craig Cafton, Bob Pezzola, Jonathan Prosser... Filth produced by Gira/Mosimann. BTB produced Gira...Perpetual thanks: Daniel Gira, Peter Mason, Kevin Wortis, Derek Woodgate, Jarboe. Packaging design M.Gira for Young God Productions. Execution: Joe Budenholzer. Remastered at Griffin Mastering, Atlanta, Ga. by Chris Griffin.
Compared to his recent albums, Vainio's audio contributions to this project are more abstract and deconstructed than his busier, often rhythm tinged work.He utilizes expansive passages of silence (white space) amongst blasts of noise and strange frequencies that sound anything but identifiable."Fade from Black," for example, features Mika melding the large passages of silence with heavy, almost imperceptibly low frequencies tones and glassy resonations.
At the conclusion of the album, "White Out," is less rooted in silence but features the same subwoofer destroying bass frequencies.A rising and falling electronic hum from what sounds like processed white noise stays consistent throughout the piece.Towards the end, bits of what sounds like actual melody appear and result in him creating the most traditionally musical sounding piece on the disc.
"Missing a Border" is a noisier excursion, with bits of what almost sounds like a conventional synthesizer heavily processed and demolished.Even though it is one of the more kinetic and noisier pieces, it still never becomes too overwhelming or aggressive, barring the overly shrill ultrasonic bits that sharply cut through.Bleak and moody are the best ways to describe "Notes On the Exposure," a slowly expanding piece of midrange digital noise that is less of a dominating sound.
It is on "Lines of a Curve" that the sound I most associate with Vainio’s body of work.Sequences of pitch bent clicks and pops scatter about, resulting in the loosest semblance of rhythms.Much of the piece is made up of crackly textures, with buzzing noise and silence blended in, and oddly disorienting Doppler effect heavy passages of sound.
Michel’s photography, sourced from a digital camcorder, may differ in its technological nature from Vainio’s analog instruments, but the presentation complements it perfectly.Natural and man-made structures feature heavily in her work, as do candid photographs of people in industrial spaces.While critiquing photography is not at all my forte, her heavily white-drenched digital stills, with odd color artifacting, and often overlaid with found patterns and textures, look as Vainio’s music sounds.
As the Touch label continues into its fourth decade of activity, Halfway to White is a contrast to its early days.While before the label would issue compilations on cassettes paired with small run magazines, now they are working in the media of high quality digital recordings and beautifully bound, art edition quality books.Vainio's and Michel's work compliment each other splendidly on here, and the result is a fully realized collaboration between two distinct and exceptional artists.