Sound\/video artist Ran Slavin, an Israeli, uses aerial photography of the Middle East as a visual underpinning to The Wayward Regional Transmissions, which follows last year’s Insomniac City CD + DVD release on Mille Plateaux. Apart from the hint offered in the title “Shelters and Peace”, there is very little sense of the political strife in the region. This is more a warped and filtered celebration of its topographical virtues, folk traditions and general aromas. “Jericho 6AM”, featuring the oud of Moshe Eliahu, conveys, in its distant drones and sampled folk, a pregnant and palpable sense of the heady emptiness of dawn, creating an atmosphere you can almost reach out and bite. “Village” is built around the traditional bulbul tarang of Ahura Ozeri, as is “Wayward Initial”, Techno-cubistic takes on this instrument otherwise known as the ‘Indian banjo’. “Dat Beats” could be seen as an “elaboration” on a more famous exploration of this particular audio subject matter \u00e2\u20ac\u201d CAbaret Voltaire’s Three Mantras.<\/p>\n
David Stubbs<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Sound\/video artist Ran Slavin, an Israeli, uses aerial photography of the Middle East as a visual underpinning to The Wayward Regional Transmissions, which follows last year’s Insomniac City CD + DVD release on Mille Plateaux. Apart from the hint offered in the title “Shelters and Peace”, there is very little sense of the political strife … <\/p>\n