Only those conversant with the handling of cables, switches and knobs to manufacture sounds beyond one’s ken can fathom the sense of reward arising when the creatures finally breathe. Thomas Dimuzio basically lives for it, and within it. Decades of expertise as a tester and avid user of analog equipment are clearly reflected in his productions. The substance materializes from sudden impulse, internal contradictions of singular timbres, spontaneously developed circuits. Yet what stands out from this music is an underlying purpose invariably defying the apparent mayhem.
LCM – a strangely under-hyped June 2021 release – is a set of six tracks uniquely grounded in the sonorities of a Buchla synthesizer, of which Dimuzio is an accomplished adept. The title’s three letters (also employed as initials of each track, though for different words) are a direct allusion to Life Changing Ministries, an Oakland venue beloved by the intimate circle of experimental artists who performed there. Dimuzio assembled recordings that occurred between 2013 and 2015, blending them into brilliant patchworks of wise unpredictability. Frankly, I feel envy for the few who witnessed those concerts. The idea of experiencing on the skin and in the brain’s muscles the turnover of irrepressible dynamics and sonic (dis)proportions, halfway through irrational and scientific, makes me sigh in these times of remote stupidity.
Still, you can certainly focus and – ultimately – have fun by listening to a mere record (in this case, moreover, an LP edition limited to 100 copies, dear collectors). Dimuzio knows how to grab someone by the neck and slap them silly; danger is around the corner if you are desperately looking for agreements. At the same time, he opens up more oxygen-rich possibilities in the midst of semi-industrial nebulosity and meltable anarchism. In this creational framework, alternation of (coincidental) governance goes hand in hand with plurality of meaning. And, you know, learning that meaning is not even that relevant. Subjected to all kinds of signals – human enough, as it is – the ears strive for improved alignment. In the meantime, our inner hearing has long been ready for the translation of a future that is barely surmised, not carved in the stone of dogma.
MASSIMO RICCI. TOUCHING EXTREMES. 