{"id":9559,"date":"2017-02-03T10:46:58","date_gmt":"2017-02-03T09:46:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.cronicaelectronica.org\/?p=9559"},"modified":"2017-02-02T13:47:05","modified_gmt":"2017-02-02T12:47:05","slug":"nowhere-exercises-in-modular-synthesis-and-field-recording-reviewed-by-chain-dlk","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/blog.cronicaelectronica.org\/?p=9559","title":{"rendered":"\u00e2\u20ac\u0153Nowhere: Exercises in Modular Synthesis and Field Recording\u00e2\u20ac\u009d reviewed by Chain DLK"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>
\nThe \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Nowhere\u00e2\u20ac\u009d in the title is initially a barren place, the first three minutes of the opening track little more than faint geiger-counter-like glitches, before being crashed into by industrial electronics and barely discernible vocal declarations that form a jolting chaos for a couple of minutes, before disappearing as abruptly as they arrived, leaving only a radiophonic workshop-esque scenario of meandering tones.<\/p>\n

This largely sets the tone for the entire work, which is substantially improvised, in Smolders own words \u00e2\u20ac\u0153letting things flow and interfering only when necessary\u00e2\u20ac\u009d, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153I have left the idea of a preconceived\/designed composition\u00e2\u20ac\u009d, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153there is only a vague idea before I start recording\u00e2\u20ac\u009d. Large expanses of gentle scientific, sometimes sci-fi ambience are occasionally gatecrashed by sudden and acrid assaults of white or discordant noise so abrupt they ought to carry a health warning; five minutes into third track \u00e2\u20ac\u0153For Rudy Carrera\u00e2\u20ac\u009d being a prime example. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Song For Maya Deren\u00e2\u20ac\u009d is like REM sleep briefly troubled by monsters, before the sleep of \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Up Up And Back To 1982\u00e2\u20ac\u009d mixes distant hums with vinyl crackle sounds akin to rain on a window before, once again, the nightmares return around the six minute mark. This evaporates, warm bottle-music arpeggios arrive, but these in turn are crushed into lo-fi, 8-bit 4-bit and beyond. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a pattern that repeats unpredictably and it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s certainly not always pleasant.<\/p>\n

Were it not for the rather petulant sudden storms that whip up irregularly, I would be full of praise for the confidently sparse, measured soundscapes that are created here, a form of contemporary digital remodelling of music concrete that forms the larger part of the work. And while I certainly wouldn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t want to suggest that music should be anaemic or palliative, in this case it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s the furious interludes that don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t complement the whole, and a more measured temper throughout could have left this as a very elegant album, and it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s the cacophony-free pieces such as track 2 \u00e2\u20ac\u0153NowHere\u00e2\u20ac\u009d and track 6 \u00e2\u20ac\u0153NoWhere\u00e2\u20ac\u009d (do you see what they did there?) that are the strongest. Stuart Bruce<\/em><\/p>\n

via Chain DLK<\/a><\/p>\n