This is a ‘two-for-one’ CD containing a live set each from Freiband and Boca Raton.
Freiband’s contribution sounds like it is derived primarily from the manipulation of various parameters of short loops. On some pieces these manipulations are themselves looped in repetitive patterns. These loop parameters and patterns are then gradually extrapolated (I wonder if I’m getting a little over-fond of that word in this issue) over the duration of the (on average 2’30) pieces. While this CD exemplifies clear process/transparency of activity, there are enough layers of activity to keep the more caffeine-addled among you from irritably jabbing at the forward skip button. The tracks crossfade into one another; the primary sounds of each are introduced in the closing moments of the preceding piece. It says on the sleeve that all the material is loosely based on the Microbes CD, which is presumably a previous album of Freiband’s (our research department is on holiday).
Now I have to confess after the first couple of listens, Boca Raton’s eight tracks were doing nothing for me. Just too austere and seemingly arbitrary. Each sucessive slowly descending pink noise sweep or distant omminous tingling was increasing my craving for a payload of vein popping funk-metal. Alan, my guitar teacher when I was younger, once told me that a person’s ability to grasp abstraction was a good measure of the maturity of their mind, which reflects rather poorly on me in this case because as soon as I read the collective (and individual) name of Boca Raton’s tracks (ie Crop and Circle), they began to function as program music for an elaborate narrative unfolding in my brain. It’s aliens having a midnight crop circle making session! With this new frame around it the music becomes really ominous and otherly. The pieces sit somewhere between foley track and film score. It culminates for me with the birdsong of Circle’7…dawn breaking as the crop circlers are putting away their equipment. This is a great CD.
Rec