It took yours truly a long time to find again, after many useless attempts and unfortunate experiences, an album based on austere electronics and computerized treatments of samples (and heaven knows what else) as rewarding as Scytale. To be honest, it was a chance meeting of sorts. The missus was recording a song in our main room, so I casually grabbed an old discman and this CD, immediately sprawling my body on the bed with eyes closed in semi-sleepy state, the door shut to everything else. A classic case of transcendence occurred, a whole entity welcoming the consecutiveness of intangible nebulousness, unrevealed presences, near-silences and intelligent tampering on the extremes of audibility performed by the participants.
In a way, the record combines snapshots taken in dissimilar electroacoustic realms; one moment it’s concentrated entrancement, an instant later we feel about to be assaulted by a menacing device that ultimately fizzles; tiny shards of concreteness wake us up before a new scenario fades in. Crucially, stillness is needed in the compositional design, not utilized just because it must be there. During successive spins from the speakers, this reviewer appreciated the music’s impressive capacity of penetrating a transitory soundtrack by mixing both visible and indiscernible constituents to the echoes coming from outside (incredible how a distant bike and a subsonic murmur can pleasingly mesh). David Sani, Luigi Turra, Shay Nassy, Michael Hartman and Yukitomo Hamasaki produced an excellent piece of work, skilfully mastered by Taylor Deupree. Go for it.
MASSIMO RICCI. TOUCHING EXTREMES. 