Lately, I've been fascinated by corporeal aspects of music. As I know nothing about music theory (/matemathics/physics) I have no technical language for describing what I hear. I listen to Frank Bretschneider & Taylor Deupree: Balance. Dubby, minimal beats flutter around with a multitude of sometimes very subtle sounds.
The first track, "Interlock" is the weakest on the album. Too much is going on. Still, I like the slightly perverse sound that recalls a molested, thumping saxophone (perverse in the Matmos sense, if you want). But there are quite a few whirling levels on the track diverting my attention in too many directions at the same time. I've just come back from a reading group on Deleuze. I can really hear those desiring machines interlock, that throbbing, perverse thump. When I listened to this track the first time it appeared very clean, too clean, and slightly boring. But as I listen a few more times, it starts to fall apart - in a good way. The sounds that first appeared quite melodic, suddenly turn out to be more "dissonant" than I first realized. Etc. Track 2, "Moving light" builds on the friction between a pulsating beat and a crunching bass sound drifting in & out "disturbing" the harmony of the track in having no clear pace. A few beeps along with a "humorous" (?) wave-like glich muster up "a melody". In the background, there is a thundering sound that conjures up the image of a person hammering on metal junk. The elegance of "electricity" along with gritty "industrial". I feel queasy. It's a restless track, and the title, "Moving light", is very fitting. Reflections of the sun dancing on a wall. "Dug in" is a dubby affair. There are at least two separate beats (what is a beat and what is not???) and a few additional layers of clicks and signals. I hear a jarring seesaw buried somewhere deep down in the mix. An intruding beep gradually come to dominate the song. After a while, I feel like I've been listening to telephone signals. The restlessness of the earlier tracks is gone. The atmosphere is calmer. There are lots of noises here, but the overall feel is not mind-splintering. "Vertical invader". I am enthralled by a train whistle. Expectation. I don't know for how long that beat has been there. Maybe forever. The rustic feel of the "train whistle" is contrasted with a few very "clubby" sound that, if added in another context, could stir up a real Groove among the hip kids. I am torn between a hazy club and a foggy train station. A static noise kicks in, I didn't realize it at first, then it worms its way into my ears and I feel surprised about how it got there. This is "Freeze frame". One single note in varied shapes accompanies the ever-pulsating, ever-transforming beat, that now has taken a less dominating position. Percussion sounds roll around in my speakers, along with glitchy, surprisingly 80's sounding synth sounds. A broken computer game. I see that green&black screen freeze. The pace gets more and more irregular. There are stops and starts, pulls and jerks. But the pace is overall slow. "Autodrive" has a sound that conjures up a breathing machine. The "telephone beep" is back, too. A dubby beat. I feel like having woken up from surgery; nausea. Displacement. The high-frequency noises in the background fumble about, discreet, gentle, while the overall sound is surprisingly melodic, whatever that means in this context. I am glued into those sounds; they have become part of my system. I'm playing the record on repeat. We're moving into "Concrete". Are we talking about the not-abstract or a building material? Well, if this is a building site they are building computer chips, rather than houses. Crispy choes. A quiet song, with few jarring sounds. Relaxation. Then, suddenly, a really bass-loaded beat kicks in somewhere in the background. My speakers are dancing around in the room. This is microdub, indeed, and it sounds damn good. "Half-mute" is exactly what the title indicates. The bass in the background quietly propulses the track. There's a disturbing sound of - what is it? - a clock? And light metal sticks clanked together. A surging sound, the breathing machine transformed into a quiet monster tugging at you. These layers are suddenly turning into something that sounds almost energetic. No, you couldn't dance to it but I feel less drowsy than I did while listening to some of the earlier tracks. Only a bunch of those narcotics still perpetuating that stupor. Or have I simply got used to the pace? "Bluetime" is dominated by another one of those electricity-sounds. Old-timey computer modems. And then the sound is stripped down, once again. A beat. A slightly unruly click. The sound of machinery, communicating.
On Balance, all tunes coalesce into each other. One could listen to them in one sitting, without even realizing at which point one track ends and the next one begins. It's not noise music in the Merzbow sense. But the physical aspect of the listening experience is important here, though. It's almost as if you feel the sounds and transformations in you (but maybe that's because I, as I said, have been reading Deleuze lately). It's not an ambience album, either - there's still some driving "rhythms" throughout the album, however abstract they might appear. And maybe this is too dynamic, too stuffed with variations to be called a "minimalist" album. I don't care.
(Sorry, this is a terribly amateurishly written review - as always - but it is pretty interesting to explore music in words, without the aid of technical language.)
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