Bruce Gilbert – This Way To The Shivering Man

I’m still at a loss to understand the hype and love surrounding Dome/Wire/Solo efforts/etc. It is sometimes interesting, sometimes enjoyable, sometimes engaging, sometimes boring, and always pretentious and self-conscious.

I’m still at a loss to understand the hype and love surrounding Dome/Wire/Solo efforts/etc. It is sometimes interesting, sometimes enjoyable, sometimes engaging, sometimes boring, and always pretentious and self-conscious.

The CD opens with the three parts of ‘Work for Do You Me? I Did’. Part 1 is a mantra of looped choral type effects washed with sweeps of white noise and other effected sound sources. Part 1 is leaves you listening without change, but is in no way a seed for boredom; it takes you to another place, leading into part 2. The second part introduces a far off alarm that radiates through the whole track forming the foundation to some reverberated metallic note progressions. Then there is silence, leaving you feeling alone with the original alarm sounding in an open derelict space. This leads into the ominous clouds of sound laced with a slow random metallic rhythm. Part 3 plods along with flanged drumming and a looser melody weaving in and out of the structure. The next section of the CD begins with Hommage with does little for the albums feel. The Shivering Man is made up of manipulated recorded sounds feeding into a modulated resonant filter sound moving sideways into a mutating sound experiment. Here Visit is a four minute loop with some random sounds sounding a little like early Cabaret Voltaire. Epitaph for Henran Brenlar introduces vocals in a loosely based song with a unique sound – it works very well, fitting into the middle of the CD. The group of musical experiments ends with Angelfood, rhythmic loops transcending into some interesting, dislocated vocal experiments.