From Sean Cooper Sent Sun, Nov 9th 1997, 22:15
From Sean Cooper Sent Sun, Nov 9th 1997, 22:15
>described in the wire as 'the welsh sun-ra'[ahem], richard composes with out >the aid of digital technology, just found sound, tape loops and ye old >skool real live instrumentation, some inspired moments, comes on like ui >meets throbbing gristle meets mantronix, but richard fails to stamp it >with any >mark of originality and the whole thing renders itself a composite of >>previously visited and far superior musical vistas well, probably i should just let my previous message do this for me, but i'm so taken by the richard thomas ep above-slagged that i felt the need to tackle it head-on. to my ears, there are a few artists releasing music in the "electronica" world giving a committed once-over to combining electronics and acoustics in an experimental context both balanced and innovative. these include david moufang, kreidler, mouse on mars, and bisk, and i would also include richard thomas (at least what i've heard of him). the welsh sun ra is, of course, typical wire hyberbole--insufficient, reductive, and ultimately damaging, appealing to an ahistorically eclectic "avant-gardism" and expressing little more than a vague similarity of enthusiasm in the writer (i'm guilty of this all the time, so i know it when i see it). not all of thomas' lo sampler hits with extreme force, but after listening to the whole thing through for the third or fourth time straight, my lingering impression was that it was some of the most *original* music to straddle the range of genres it does. so there. :p sc onnow: ground zero : null & void (tzadik)