Thomas Dimuzio – Sutro Transmissions

Resipiscent

I can’t believe Thomas Dimuzio has been producing sound for over thirty years and is still finding ways of taking the listener on sonic journeys; they are not always comfortable, but are invigorating and filled with new modes of expression. Perhaps that is the beauty of modular synth work; the possibilities are endless and one could be making soundscapes from now until the end of days and never repeat a motif.

Here, over two sides of vinyl, Thomas treads that wavy line on Sutro Transmissions that veers from chaos to transcendence in a way that that wrests all control from the listener; like being stuck in a driverless car that has been fitted with twenty radios midway between stations, with the ghosts of distant people mired in the static along with car alarms, sprinklers, jackhammers and who knows what else. At least, that is how it starts.

Chaotic visions of a processed future or like that scene from Luc Besson‘s Lucy where she is suddenly able to detect all the conversations around her. The voices seem to be the key here, distorted into a new reality that makes the calming and transcendent drone that appears all the more surprising. At times, it feels like having a heart attack, snatches of sound surround you, but are too quick to follow; and then all is blackness and clam — then the voices and noises start in again. Trying to find your way out of this labyrinth is difficult, because at every wrong turn is another sample, another jab in the cerebellum, another disorientating blast of something.

The soporific sense of distant stasis that arrives later as the chaos drifts onto the horizon is all the more welcome from what has come before; an opportunity to take your breath and allow the palpitations to stop; but although the voices are a distant memory, the blinding sunlight is almost as debilitating. All else stops and you feel yourself drifting further and further away, bumping into space junk as the light gradually fades and the mesmerising subtlety of the long slow fade consumes you.

Side two is less intense, but therefore a little easier. The drifting static is filled with odd, random little movements. The voices are less intense, but the textures are spiky and harsh, and  somehow their distance removes their harm, but the insistence is a nagging presence; constantly in motion and just out of eyeline or earshot, straining for the detail to be picked up. But as voices start to make inroads again, this time they appear as friendly intrusions, stepping into this metallic wasteland of sonic surf. As the tide recedes along with the voices, leaving you alone at the shoreline, so your ears start to re-acquaint themselves with the sounds of normality after this bewildering journey and peace once again reigns in the world.

It feels like a distant dream, but the proof is there in your hand.

-Mr Olivetti-