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Daniel Menche - Together We Shall Melt Mountains With Our Blood - 17-Nov-05 01:14 AM
I simply cannot rate this one high enough. This is, in my opinion, the very definition of dark noise, and an excellent entry point to Menches work, if you can get ahold of it. The copy I have has been hand numbered as being 24/100, so if it truly is that limited, good luck -- but it is worth it!

Jonathan Coleclough - Period - 02-Nov-03 12:38 PM
Using a grand piano as source material, it was put through processing equipment real time to produce long, convoluted, and articulate manipulations of the piano strikes and fades. The periodic key strikes bear little melodic or tempo relationship, yet it is probably one of the most beautiful piano pieces I have ever heard outside of the classics. Beneath these is a tide of tonal fluctuations, the ends if the key strikes stretched out for scores of minutes until they become the accompaniment for the strikes. These grow and diminish in intensity throughout the piece, at some points reminding me of Coils brilliant tonal study, Time Machines.

The second track has a much more digital treatment than the original. But this shouldnt be viewed as a negative. It is a very haunting and emotional piece; ethereal elements appear throughout, and strange non-existent sounds find themselves in your head, but when inspected consciously, fleet away like ghosts.

A brilliant abstract/minimal addition to any enthusiasts library.

Biosphere - Cirque - 06-Aug-03 04:00 PM
In explanation of my earlier comment: When I said it borders on trance, I didnt mean it was like trance, merely that it is suggestive of it. At least to my ears. What I mean by that is that it has much more structure than Substrata, and that structure is reminiscent of trance. Nothing more. Yes, technically it is dub. I should have made the distinction more vivid. This is not a negative, just a difference that someone who really enjoyed Substrata should be aware of.

Secondly: What I mean by muffled is purely from a production quality standpoint; the engineering of the samples and how well they mesh together work to create an environment. With Cirque, the engineering of the samples feels flat to me. This is purely a sound quality issue. Glitch can be extremely emersive and sharp. A good example of that would be Poles "1" which is practically entirely glitch, but very intricate and sharp. You can listen to it on very high quality equipment and it will never feel "flat."

I didnt mean to come off as negative on this release. It is beautiful music, and I listen to it fairly often.

Aphex Twin - Selected Ambient Works Volume II - 05-Aug-03 11:06 AM
Quite simply put, the greatest electronic CD that I own, and quite possibly in the top ten over all (this is battling with the likes of Mozart and Bach, mind you.) Not only is this the CD that introduced me to Aphex Twin, it is the CD that launched me into a world of experimemtal, ambient, and IDM sounds. Every once in a while you get something that changes your life, and I can honestly say this changed my life -- and it continues to do so, nearly a decade later. Ive listened to this one so many times, sometimes all day long on loop. There isnt a single song that gets old for me.

Another thing is that it does not feel dated, despite using equipment and techniques that are now inferior -- it is almost as if the hissing and sometimes marred samples were all meant to be that way. Ambient Works I has not aged so well, unfortunately. Part of it has to do with the utter atmospheric quality of the tracks. Some of them seem more akin to forgotten wind chimes on a depression era porch out in the middle of Kansas. There isnt ever a feeling that this is electronic, even though it plainly is.

There is no "right" way to listen to this music. Ive listened to it in the background with my parents while discussing philosophy; In a hot bath with flickering candles; in the wee hours of the morning writing software; weeping in bed; painting; softly; so loud the walls shake; sitting on the porch; cooking food; making love -- Ive done it all, and never has it felt out place. It taints whatever you are doing and enhances it. It is brain food. My best artistic inspirations have unfolded during some of its darkest tracks.

It will creep you out. Youll find yourself madly humming its non-sense sonic riddles during the day. Its ironic, the reason I diverged from my prior listening tastes into the word it opened up was to find more music like it. Ive found a lot of stuff I really love as a result -- but I have yet to this day found anything like SAW2, and I doubt I ever will. It used to depress me, but now I dont mind. The original craving for more has been fulfilled by the timeless quality it provides.

Pan Sonic - 02-Aug-03 07:57 PM
Good to note, these guys will stress your speakers if you try to play them too loud, and dont judge the volume by the first bits you hear. They love to play around with the psychoacoustic effect of placing really loud noises next to really soft noises to increase the perceptual volume. They also do a lot of stuff that sounds as if it goes above and beyond the frequency rating of most speakers (and human hearing capabilities.) Some have debated that even though you cannot hear them, if you speakers can reproduce them, these sub and super sounds effect the impact of the sounds you can hear.

Due to how clean and powerful the sounds are, I have found that Pan Sonic tracks make excellent referencing CDs when testing out new audio equipment in a store. There is very little background hiss at all, if any, and the great range of frequency and volume really gives you a solid feel for what the testing equipment can do.

Technical advisories and notes aside, these guys do some great experimental stuff. I usually save listening to their CDs for those times when I can shut off the lights, lean back in a chair, and enter alien worlds of sound with no disturbances. Haunting and powerful stuff.

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