Re: (idm) Re: Flanger

From eric hill
Sent Wed, Jul 7th 1999, 07:14

>> since you can't have subtlety without something relative to bounce it off
>> of, this album doesn't qualify as subtle. without subtlety, it has to be
>> obvious. obviously what, i don't know yet.
>
>Well, that's what I meant, pretty much. Aren't semantics just super?
>They're nouny and adjectivous all simultaneous-like.

except music is un-language-like in that you don't need any prior
experience with an unfamiliar sonic expression for it to be meaningful. i
think it's a good thing to have this much difficulty making sense of a
release. from what i've heard so far, this album took everyone by
surprise. 

actually, upon rereading the review, if you subtract the bullied
bitterness (see below), it's pretty positive and would probably wind up
interesting a lot more people on this list. 

tape-spliced deruded remix:

>There is subtlety coming out of this album...there is nothing else.
>Subtlety without some sort of big mess on top.  He bares the
>intellectually-challenging tidbits to the sunlight for perusal by every
>listener. If you took all the quarter notes out of Plastikman's
>"Sickness," Atom Heart has done this w/ Flanger. He and Friedmann put
>together these rhythm section parts that go on without repeating
>themselves. They could have thrown down two or three preset synth
>patches on top, but they just left it organ & drums. No matter how many
>slick and innovative ways you put together one and two, you are still
>only left with one and two.  Fusion references, dub inflections,
>whatever. They're only there for milliseconds at a time and then it's
>back to rhythm tracks. ...bippity click cliiiick clicklick DURMP DADURMP
>pip ziff ziff click bip...

i have to say i agree! granted, these are largely technical observations
that say nothing about the music itself (glitchy electronic Jazz [note
capitalization]). the album is very obvious in what it's _trying_ to do,
and i think they're successful and it sounds good, regardless of how i
thought it might have turned out.

eric

onnow: two lone swordsmen, "the fifth mission" (emissions)