Kemialliset Ystävät / Sunroof! - Split Series 19 - 12inch/DIG - Out Now

27/10/08

AQ New Arrivals #303

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----*  Record of the Week :
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BAKER, AIDAN & TIM HECKER  "Fantasma Parastasie"  (Alien8 Recordings)  cd/lp  15.98/22.00
     Expectations were pretty high for this one. Two long time aQ favorites, both with similar yet distinctive sounds, but with incredibly different bodies of work. Aidan Baker, who releases records a mile a minute, averaging 1 or 2 a month, thankfully managing to hit the bullseye almost every time. And Tim Hecker, who has produced 5 or 6 full lengths in as many years, every one practically perfect. Both Baker and Hecker explore similar sonic spectrums, utilizing fuzz and buzz and shimmer, Baker taking it a step further with his doom duo Nadja, taking the lurch and lumber of the genre and adding swirls of gauze and haze and bliss, while solo, he tends toward the more ambient and abstract. Hecker on the other hand takes what appears to be pop music and subverts it, sublimates it, pulls it apart and recontextualizes the sound, which usually involves wrapping everything in washed out whirs and blurred hiss, and all manner of glitch and crackle, like listening to music through headphones made out of steel wool and insulation. But with two such strong sonic personalities, the potential for this collaboration to be a bit of a mess was fairly high, and then of course there was also the possibility that each would just do their own thing, allowing the other to add bits here and there. But somehow, the sounds on Fantasma Parastasie manage to transcend, allowing glimpses of familiar sounds, hints of each artist's own work, but woven into a whole that is unto itself, a gloriously abstract swirl of sound, longform landscapes of bliss and blur, of buzz and even roar, extended movements, in which the various elements drift and shimmer, overlap and intertwine, melodies and songcraft meet texture and soundscapery, guitars unfurl tangled melodies one second, bleary eyed chordal blurs the next, harmonics glisten and hover amidst deep soft swells, distortion and buzz build into fierce walls of blown out psychedelia, the sounds crumbling and decaying before our ears, threatening to collapse, and in this fragile state lies the beauty of those sounds, effulgent, incandescent, but  at the same time, blackening, beginning some unnamable process of inevitable decay. And eventually it does decay, those thick roiling sounds dissipate, leaving something soft and shimmery, glistening on a bed of shed buzz and crumbled crush, floating heavenward, its notes and melodies catching the sunlight, and offering up prismatic reflections.
     The strange thing about this record is that each song is separated into super short pieces, eleven in most cases, each part between 15 and 45 seconds (it's obviously much more noticeable on the cd). We tried listening to it on shuffle, presuming that was perhaps the intention, and while it still sounds cool, it was a bit too and took too much away from the overall effect. Instead, the various parts, played in order, slip seamlessly into one another, so much so that if you weren't watching the tracks tick by on player, you wouldn't even notice.
     The two work amazingly well together, bits of guitar, fragments of riffs, looped and repeated, swathed in thick smears of digital crunch, of buzzing rumble, much of the record sounds like a heavier William Basinski, as if the two were experimenting with they own Disintegration Loops. A few of the tracks are quite tranquil, abstract and minimal, but for the most part, Baker and Hecker seem more interested in distressed sounds, in distortion, in pushing the limits, composing in the red, needles pegged, but taking what in other hands could be harsh and abrasive, and crafting those sounds into something simultaneously soft and dreamlike. Even the various movements, drift smoothly into one another the entire record almost like a single piece, expansive and varied and sprawling, epic and majestic, but inward looking, introspective, melancholy, imbuing the crumbling crunch and blown out minimalism, with emotion, with distinctive mood, at once dark and mysterious, but also strangely hopeful.
     The album closer and title track, is the only one not split up into movements, and is easily the most abstract, the most minimal, a stretch of lugubrious low end, so soft, so weightless, a hushed musical murmur, no distortion, no buzz, just a simple swell and sway, drifting fading, and finally disappearing.
     Absolutely breathtaking.

http://www.ralphewhite.com/products.html

The Atavistic Waltz - CD

(2008)
Eight brand new originals and covers featuring White's unmistakable kalimba/ banjo/accordion/fiddle arrangements. Guest singer Amy Annelle on "The Cuckoo".