After my recent question of “where else would you find such a thing?” for Alien‘s recent 23 tracks in 23 minutes release for the wonderful Courier Sound label, head honcho Stuart Bowditch has decided to ask fellow traveller and long-form electronic artiste Eumig to attempt a similar undertaking. As somebody who is more attuned to stretching pieces out to see where they will eventually take him, this is something of a change of tack for Nick Dawson, but once again it garners extraordinary and diverse results.
The ominous digital scuffs and scrapes of opener “Closed Circuit Television” are rather sinister and foreboding, but give way to the ear-penetrating but oddly positive child’s play and air-raid siren of “Law Of Diminishing Returns”. Eerie calm battles snippets of repeated tension and jackboot rhythms are interspersed with the bursting of digital balloons. The capture of an airless atmosphere in “Audio Tingual Acquisition”, ticking with hidden force, gives an interesting perspective of this paradoxical environment where the organic forces are contrived into an uneasy union.
Robotic tones highlight the sound of progress outside and the drones on “Worship Of Heavenly Bodies” have some extra sort of vibrant meaning, sorting the ancient from the modern, but are unable to prevent the distortion and fear that rises up suddenly on “Accident Waiting To Happen”. Considering that the pieces are so short, they still afford the listener no real respite. It is as though the intensity is somehow concentrated, and the 23 tracks feel like 23 conscious attempts to move the listener, regardless of the time allowed. The fact that it works so well is still miraculous to me. Differentiating the drip of water from electronic distortion on “Ultraviolet Illumination” is as difficult as spotting the Mole People watching the underground train pass on “Large Indefinite Quantity”. We move from underground to outer space at the blink of an eye, and it can be sparse and mesmerising yet always mysterious.
It sounds like a lot for 23 minutes, but that is the remarkable thing. This is a collection of 23 legitimate pieces that are as engaging to the listener as if they were each ten minutes long. The absolute essence of what is required to transport the listener is here. The trouble is, will we want to go back to five- or ten-minute tracks? Now there is a question.-Mr Olivetti-
