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LABEL PROFILE GEARS OF SAND In the 80s loomed large the underground cassette network, with its attendant experimentalist fiber, artistic abandon, and dismissal of things ordinary, mainstream, staid; the equivalent milieu for the aughts is the CDR, and if anything it provides a panacea against the endless onslaught of downloading and net-labels. Owned and operated by Ben Fleury-Steiner, Gears of Sand (GoS) epitomizes what a label inhabiting the CDR underground should be like and more: professionally produced, artfully designed, enjoyably untrendy recordings ekeing out their own niche along the splintered sub-genres of fringe electronica. Stylistically, the label’s releases expose quite a cornucopia of genre; there’s a bunch of talented folks at work here, and virtually the entire catalog offers a splendid sampling of gauzily atmospheric, aurally tantalizing noises. Aidan Baker may be a "guitarist" in the sense of the currently-fashionable vogue shared by other “guitarists” (Oren Ambarchi, Fennesz, etc.), inasmuch as he uses the guitar as a springboard for sonic exploration rather than what its creators intended it for. A veritable sprite bandying about the prickly undergrowth, Baker’s released music under a number of different guises (ARC, Nadja) across a menu of labels (Piehead, Mystery Sea, Public Eyesore, Infraction, S’agita, Drone, Arcolepsy) in a dizzying array of styles, crunching data, noise, abstraction and repetition mercilessly. He’s certainly skilled enough to fool those listening to Pendulum, his GoS debut, into thinking his tailored works are realized with anything other than doubled and redoubled electric guitar. However, it’s unwise to question the magician and his sleight of hand, so suspend your disbelief for the disc’s duration and Pendulum proffers handsome rewards. Though blended into one long filmic dreamscape, five tracks chart alternately buzzing squalls of static, ominous trilling chords that recall some of the moodier atmospheres of Morricone’s soundtrack for The Thing, muzzled feedback, arcing sustain that scans the stereofield like the binoculars of a covert operative, and Frippian bursts of electrical charges that quash any possibility this music might be labeled “ambient.” The odd mastering issue does on occasion interfere (an occupational hazard of the CDR media, perhaps?); pops here and there upset the aural apple cart and temporarily spoil the moment, although the music tends to readily absorb such intrusions into its own serrated physiology. Yet, experiencing the unguitar-like sandpapery pulsations that occur halfway into “Everywhere” makes it easy to forgive a few oversights, and goes some way to reinforce Baker’s hard-earned cred. Laptopper William Fields has only two prior releases to his credit, but third time must be a charm, because Timbre is a markedly assured piece of work, reflective of the glitch but not enslaved to it. Point of fact: Fields is not only obsessed with timbre (and texture) but revels in it, exploring a wide world of sounds as his fingers do the walkin’ across the keyboard (or the mousepad, as it were). Fields considers himself a composer, and this is what separates him from a myriad of individuals getting up close and personal with their software. Sounds appear to be consciously placed rather than slathered on haphazardly; they fibrillate, glide, pulse delicately or suddenly buzz brightly, a horde of sonic fireflies peppering the night air. “Brechia (Erosion)” is particularly engrossing and recalls at moments some of Taylor Deupree’s “abrasive” works, though the tonal colors illuminating the pop-py fields suggest melodic tendencies that too often fail to arise in the genre. Contrasts abound throughout, categorical divides are bridged, clichés abandoned—take note of the sparkling chime-like notes that imbue “Seaglass,” which are just plain beautiful, echoing out from burrs of runout groove noise, or the lush machine hums of “Hivernal” as they surge amongst the sampled fauna of an autumnal forest. Timbre is a worthwhile follow-up to his previous Branches, and in execution parts of it is leagues ahead of some better-known colleagues’ work; I look forward to further Fields recordings with much interest. Not only does GoS head-honcho Fleury-Steiner walk the walk, he talks the talk too, meaning that he’s as accomplished at sonic design as the other artists whose work he releases. Channelling Yeats (the imagistic track titles) and surrealism (the cover art’s Magritte-inflected portraiture) through sensibilities as informed by Dada as data, Fleury-Steiner’s mesmerizing ambient work flourishes over the eight lengthy tracks that comprise As A Means Through Which I Can Speak, tossing preconceived genre affiliations in the proverbial trash. This is, for lack of a better phrase, “anti-drone.” Though the components of the drone are apparent, Fleury-Steiner seems more intent on establishing distinct environments in sound, the results being far too febrile to simply become one with the surrounding woodwork. Numerous influences poke out their heads for a look (Mark Isham’s early playful synth experiments circa Vapor Drawings, the melancholy chord-sweeps of Steve Roach and Oophoi), but they don’t hinder the music’s progress or grand scope. Fundamentally, this is evocative stuff in the best sense, great ringing droughts of sonic wash that reveal tonalities within tonalities, high-frequency drones that shimmer and vibrate like jeweled curtains that reflect piercing sunlight. A record of contradicting emotions, denoting both introspection and excitation, pat “drone” music this is not, and the fact that it confounds any such glib categorical baggage makes it even more compelling, and quite shelf-worthy. Flip the melancholy over and you’ve got his alter ego, Paradin, whose Coma Digenean, dedicated to “ancient deep sea parasites,” chills to the bone. The confrontational sounds that groan, wail and stagger across this 50-minute epic would disturb Jacques Cousteau on a good day—if he caught a glimpse of the sort of creatures that these noises he’d surely leap through the hatch of his bathyscaphe. Rather than taking the easy way out, using sub-aquatic presets to illustrate the disc’s raison d’etre, Fleury-Steiner instead loops the massed choirs of a thousand prehistoric beasties throughout a drugged Stygian tableaux. Strangely, the coarse drones and eerie voices don’t repel—they do in fact urge you deeper into their bizarrely fascinating lairs. Snag this one quickly before it vanishes forever into the depths. Mikronesia describes his Tissue Paper Ghosts as “a concept record about a group of people dying in a car crash,” the album’s focus being “the story of their ghosts making peace with themselves and the people of their lives.” Weighty concept, for sure—not exactly ambience for the masses. Nevertheless, Mikronesia is a clever fellow, and even if the basic premise doesn’t quite evolve in a tangible sense, only those with the most calloused of ears would be hard-pressed to not get lost in the disc’s gelatinous rhythmic tics and ectoplasmic argot. Track titles reveal a poetic flair—“Arms Bent (The Detached and Lazy Feeling of Bliss),” “Long Walk Up 611,” “Softly Coil”)—thankfully not left isolated in an amorphous drift of software waste. The aforementioned “Long Walk” seems more like a glimpse into purgatory rather than salvation; disembodied voices warble and fuss across biting winds of distortion, smeared tablas, muted anti-beats and otherworldly, respirating drones. “Softly Coil” is the polar opposite, almost serene in tone, replete with more oddly percolating noises amidst curtains of sparkling electronics. Closing with the near Eno-esque spaceshine of “Remember/Home,” Tissue Paper Ghosts is one of GoS’ best, and is a satisfying listening experience regardless of its funereal underpinnings. His creations as forbidding as his moniker, Netherworld works drones the color of pitch, expunged from the Lovecraftian depths of bottomless cosmic sinkholes. Six Impending Clouds reveals a distinct malevolence that’s palpable throughout; synths paint the sky in gradating hues of black, drones heave like the breathing of a formless, other-dimensional hulk, tones flair briefly in the ether before suddenly expiring or retreating timidly back into the darkness. It’s all kind of unnerving stuff, a soundtrack fit to accompany night tremors after reading too much Stephen King or Clive Barker, true “dark ambient” that’s something of a bastard cousin to Steve Roach’s The Magnificent Void or Darkest Before Dawn. Despite the surface density, this isn’t an oppressive music nor does it sludge on like the doomcore melt of Boris or any of a dozen Norwegian death-metal drone clones; rather, it is isolationist music of an arresting nature that fairly subsumes you into its vortex. It might lack the storied consideration of Lull, or the tempered consideration of Lustmord, but the emotional schema at play won’t make any less an impact. Careful with that ax, Eugene. Working with found metals and homemade contraptions, Canadian artist Alan Bloor’s best known as noisemaker Knurl, but operating as Pholde, his work on That Which Tends to Dissuade is a bit more placid, a “cryptic” music, suggestive of sounds irrupted from out of catacombs. The whole enterprise makes big of looming, crepuscular drifts, clanks, and the peals of ancient hinges endlessly breached, but its very portentousness becomes its undoing. By striking and bowing his metallic inventions, Pholde creates gargantuan dins that tumble out of the speakers with enough galvanic force that reverb and processing (suspected but not too obvious) seem all but moot. Still, there’s not a lot of variety amongst the five singleminded tracks; flat, squat and grimy to the ear, these cacophonies of beaten oil drums, rubbed steel ribcages and sundry other indexes of metals, stripped of context (though surely impressive to witness au natural in live performance) don’t reveal anything more substantial than the exploits of similar-minded outfits such as Crash Worship’s factory-floor pagan rites or early Test Dept. (who pretty much pioneered this kind of post-punk, bang-on-a-can “industrialism). Monolithic (at least in spirit) but monodimensional. Matthew Poulakakis has apparently never met a sample he’s never disliked. Well, that’s not entirely correct: judging from his debut 12 Reductions, he’s actually quite meticulous about his sampling, and equally adept at choosing from a veritable junkheap of sources, as befits the moniker under which he records, Salvagesound. One hastens to label this disc musique concréte, but it’s awfully close, and thankfully shorn of the stiff robe of academia that often bleeds the passion right out of others of its ilk. Not that Poulakakis is any Lionel Marchetti or Ralf Wehowsky, but his pieces act more noticeably “musical” (in an abstract sense) than his forebears, and he does have a qualitative feel for what works and what doesn’t. Overall, most of these reductions are in fact maximal, klingklang ying to industrial yang, the pulses of inert objects brought to life amidst the tell-tale heartbeats of perpetual engines. Imaginatively birthed, complexly wrought, Salvagesound muddies the waters further via his track’s epigrammatically perverse titles. The befuddled motion sickness of “Squeue,” the scrabblings and lo-fi chimes of “Hovertour,” the space ark control room hums and microbursts of “Feleket,” fetching sounds all, tickle the fancy with simultaneous moments of worry and whimsy. Superb. Is it real or is it Memorex? That’s the question Jonathan Block might have asked himself before he adopted the nom de disque Synthetic Block. Judging by the post-Tangerine Dreamisms of Escape Velocity, it’s apparent that on this venture he’s elected to go the copyist route in all but name. Block’s released some genuinely involving discs in the past, specifically for the Mindspore and Hypnos labels, while his obscure The Opposite of Staring Into Space is a criminally underrecognized gem that is well worth tracking down. Unfortunately, Escape Velocity, on face obviously in love with the Berlin school tropes it desperately mimics, feels lackluster and uninspired. Chock full of nostalgic swathes of mellotron, tick-tock rhythms and mid-tempo 70s sequencer chestnuts, Block’s largely jettisoned the rich hues of albums past for much of the tokenly familiar heard on far too many genre exercises. His abilities are unquestionable: “Four Days On” is a sprightly mosaic of translucent moire patterns that could have easily been slotted on TD’s White Eagle; the 26+ minute opus “Orbits,” its synths preening to the heavens, is the kind of pure retro-futurism well-drafted by everyone from Don Slepian to Jonn Serrie. And therein lies the problem—Block’s act of hommage doesn’t quite morph into pastiche, but it often veers too dangerously close for comfort. As a wise man once said, those who forget the past are condemned to repeat it. DARREN BERGSTEIN • www.gearsofsand.net |
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