Vultures Quartet with Schuyler Tsuda – Sui Generis

Zoharum

This is a classic slice of electro acoustika. A lovingly chaotic fusion of talents from Anthony Donovan, Matt Chilton, Will Connor – and joining forces for this release composer and audio hacker Schuyler Tsuda. The Latin title Sui Generis roughly translates to ‘of its own kind’ and the improvised clatterings and purrings here certainly don’t shy from the fact.

The album’s calliper fairies and metallic dissidences plumb a whole netherworld of unnatural chemistries, finger paint your head in plenty of amputated industry. There’s a small concession to melodic ease, brief La Monte Young slivers of fret, a few gluey fingered drones and certain blurring to the ambiance, but the focus is primary that of the scrap yard. As if Stockhausen or Berio were prowling the landfills in search of new vocabularies, their tape machines in a knot with cross-pollinating enquiries and writhing gulls. Without doubt Sui Generis is superbly well observed, gleaming with fresh contours that continuously juggle contrast and pace, messing with the ever un-tangling space to great effect.

-Michael Rodham-Heaps-