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Graeme Truslove is a composer and performer based in Glasgow, Scotland. His output includes sonic and audio-visual compositions, and improvised music – playing guitar and/or laptop in various solo and collaborative projects. He holds both an M.Eng in Electronics with Music, and a Ph.D. in Music Composition from the University of Glasgow. He currently lectures in Composition and Music Technology at the University of the West of Scotland.

With the above written on the press statement accompanying the album – I was expecting a work of dry academia; all knickers and no fur coat (to turn a phrase on it’s head). However, this album is bursting with organic textures.

Graeme Truslove’s musical output so far has been divided between the opposing spheres of fixed-medium electroacoustic composition and improvised performance. All of the works presented in Intuited Architectures focus on integrating these conflicting extremes in various ways. Throughout their development, the creative processes employed shifted from the sculptural to the performative – from the creation of sonic mosaics, constructed from the careful placement of individual sonic impulses, to the recording and manipulation of performances on self-devised digital instruments.

This shift arose initially through attempts to analyse and automate laborious micro-level techniques, however as the possibility to interact with these techniques in real-time emerged, so too did a number of unforeseen expressive possibilities. Montages became performances, which in turn became montages again.

Central to all of the compositions is a preoccupation with musical time scales, ranging from the fabrication of synthetic timbres, via these performative-algorithmic approaches, through to their integration within larger-scale temporal strategies.

Quite what Truslove was trying to achieve is beyond my humble scope – but, I love this album. Like a thousand ants walking over the microphone the sounds that are coming from my stereo are rare, electronic/biological hybrids.

The juxtaposition of composed, static piece and live improv is achieved here in spades – I really dig this album.

via Sigil of Brass

Graeme Truslove’s sonic mosaics use glitchy, electronic sounds to create gently disquieting ethereal soundscapes full of synthetic bubbles, clicks and pitter-patters. Exploring automation techniques, Truslove generates music that seems to be disassembling and reassembling itself.

The opening “Suite II”, in three parts, is generally quite frantic. Tones and layers shift impatiently, never settling into one arrangement for more than a few seconds. It’s a sometimes unpleasant bath to wallow in, often abrasive, yet at other times pretty.

“Elements” is somewhat simpler and darker, with some John Carpenter-esque elements as low impossibly-sustained piano notes underlie ghostly noises.

“Concrètisations X” is mellower in tone and puts the emphasis back in the micro-cut noises, complex, mechanical and challenging the distinction where one person’s ‘deconstructed’ is another person’s ‘broken’. At the beginning and end there are crunching, biting notes, but the second half certainly returns to the underwater feeling, with waves of slow breathing and muddy, deep rumbles.

Longest piece “Strata” is more audibly dominated by strained and rapid sounds sourced from a guitar- objects being dragged up the strings, guitar bodies being tapped and pulled and so on. The energy of this appears to run out after five minutes so we move to an environment of light industrial drone, one that makes you realise the importance of the space inbetween which is sometimes a little bit overlooked in these arrangements. The manner in which the guitar, and other new elements slowly reintroduce themselves is the most beautifully controlled section of the album, before another drop after fifteen minutes with guitar tones bringing us full circle to a close.

The self-devised digital instruments and processing give “Intuited Architectures” a character that’s unique, yet not a country mile from the well-trodden paths of sonic experimentation of this kind. It’s a little too manic too often for my tastes but it does exude quality and care. Stuart Bruce

via Chain DLK