Luer "Dog Days" 2 x 3" CDR and Vertonen "Drowning Machines" 2 X CDR

 

Thanks to Frans De Waard for his kind reviews of Luer’s Dog Days 2 x 3” and my own Drowning Machines 2 X CDR…both of which I realized I didn’t get around to even annoucing here, so here we go for a double whammy.

 

Ballast NVP028: luer: dog days (2 x 3” CDR)

Over the past few years, Matt Taggart has been doing a lot more work with modular synthesizer gear, and the results here are some of my favorite, for a few reasons. First, the stereo field is in full play. This isn’t to say his previous recordings (either as Luer or PCRV) haven’t explored the stereo field, but the slow burn of the tones combining and evolving stereophonically, is for me some of his strongest. Second, and tied to Matt’s exploration of the stereo field, both of these discs, which are drone-based, are testaments to Matt’s compositional ability to let one or two slowly evolving tones linger and fill a space. One of the reasons I appreciate this so much comes from knowing Matt’s previous work as PCRV, which was more of a harsh noise style that jumped around quite a bit, as well as his live sets, which also had a lot of quick edits. I’m intrigued as to how friends change and shift as artists, and Matt’s compositional decisions here, their restraint, is wonderful.

The release also comes with a cut up collage Matt created, which listeners are encouraged to reassemble however strikes their fancy.

 

Edition of 30 signed and numbered copies. The price in the US is $12 ppd. If you're overseas, please get in touch so I can calculate shipping. Payment can be sent via paypal to endtime34@hotmail.com.

 

 

Review:

As Luer, Taggart seems to enjoy the wilder end of drone music on the second disc and the first one options for a more broken-up sound, but that too is quite forceful at times. Not necessarily 'loud', I would think, but 'heavy' in approach. The addition of reverb on both pieces helps quite a bit in the department of 'heavy atmospherics'. Disc one, 'With Movement Comes Failure' Luer sets his broken electronics against bits of silence and creates a fine dramatic piece, whereas on disc two, 'Future Problems', he tells us the tale of heavy space trips going wrong and the soundtrack resembles the malfunction of motors of these spaceships. I was reminded here of the Korg Monotron, of which I wouldn't be surprised Luer has a couple, in combination with some pedals. It is easy to see why these two pieces are on two different discs, as they occupy different musical territories, and yet it is easy to see as always that the come from the same composer.

 

Ballast NVP026: Vertonen: drowning machines 2 CDR and 64 page book
The audio is created from my Polivoks synth and is an aural medical exploration of drowning.

In that aspect, it shares some ideas as side one of my 2013 11° 22.4'N 142° 35.5'E / HACE/26,250' LP: what would a body, on the neural and microbiological scale, “sound” like? Pulses come through as the small eruptions of pathophysiological events, and other electrical misfirings are conveyed with elements that linger behind or beneath, decaying and collapsing, while pushing those pulses along: biological response and resistance.

The graphics were derived from documentation of events leading up to what one could call a “noteworthy," drowning event (which, it could be contended, overshadowed the drowning itself).

The text was created from medical analyses of drowning, the autopsy report of the aforementioned drowning, descriptions of the event prior to that drowning, and other adjacent (chronological, geographical, and asynchronous) and related ideas.

 

The release is in an edition of 33 signed and numbered copies. The price in the US is $14 ppd. If you're overseas, please get in touch so I can calculate shipping. Payment can be sent via paypal to endtime34@hotmail.com.

 

 

Review:

I have no idea what 'Drowning Machines' is about. I read the short texts in this book, which seems like diary entries about hospitals. I might be wrong of course, but the two parts of the first piece are called 'Initial cardiac Arrhythmia' and 'Secondary Cardiac Arrhythmia', while the second CDR is called 'Drowning Machines 2: medical and biological'. The two pieces, altogether over 100 minutes, are drone-based but at the same time also a not your usual drones. Starting with a low-thump, steadily growing in intensity until in the second part it slows and tones down. Around that big drone-based mass of sound. Adding reverb to several parts gives this an additional atmospheric layer as if you are in a hospital. There are more small changes; the second part of the second part sounds like Vertonen uses computer processing, and has almost a melodic edge to it, which is not something one hears a lot in the work of Vertonen. It's little changes like this that makes me enjoy the work of Vertonen a lot. Within that whole big space of drone music, it is the small changes that make the difference and Blake Edwards is very good at that.