::: fourcolour ::: air curtain ::: 12k ::: 12K1029

this release reminds me of watching the weather, enjoying the shifts in light, atmosphere, hue and so forth. or enjoying the experience of reverie on a visit to a gallery. the musical palette of this cd is, in the main, composed of guitar samples: harmonics, melodies, drones and minimal rhythmic glitches. this is at once melancholic and inspiring.

its interesting that the ceo of this label takes a part in running websites that have free downloadable typefaces: something about generating a new language comes to mind, working on many levels: the musical and the written, both written: the microsounds and text icons supporting an evolving vision.

i was reminded of the both the book and metaphor 'Haunted Weather' (David Toop), whilst listening to this cd. David Jennings, reviewing this book at www.alchemi.co.uk, commented that

"When i was about half-way through Haunted Weather I had a dream where as part of of an audition or assessment I had to do a reading to a panel that included David Toop. As I am a confident reader I had no fears, but as i started to read the newspaper article given to me, I quickly realised that the reading made no sense without the photograph that went with it. I tried to 'read' the photograph, but how? Should I read each blade of grass in the picture left to right? Then how would I deal with the tree that punctuated the lawn? Painfully aware that I had made a wrong turn into a dead end, i reverted to the text. But by now my fluency was irrecoverable, and I sputtered to a stop."

I think this illustrates how a visual level of perception underpins experiences that would appear to operate primarily in other modalities of perception: sometimes its better to hear music with your eyes wide shut, you see and hear more. with some of these tracks, making use of microsounds and textures, maybe a more fragmentary process of dreaming, reminding, researching may be taking place: using the music as some kind of stimulus object, researching our memories in some lateral, initially anonymous way.

the aesthetic is less linear than a lot of music, delivery is more of a being space rather than a direct narrative, the intensity of the textures waxing and waning, ebbing and flowing, the process of listening is slowed, you are given more time to (re)experience the space: like Brian Eno's ambient music: music for airports, transitional spaces, reading, painting, imagining, imaging. it feels that there is a narrative in this cd. i also came to think of this music as sculpture, in a way, partly due to its laterality and angularity: architecture as frozen:music:as architecture.

the angles get sharper as the cd plays, pulsing with life: on Cloud Whereabouts (5) and As Rain (6) the overall tone shifts towards a mood more looming and immanent: before falling away to something more settled to end. a disciplined, intensely creative release.

www.12k.com

November 2004