Husnaan – ‘Capturing Image Of The Eminent Incorrect Interpretation’ C36
Husnaan is Duto Hardono from Indonesia. Using a small array of electronic devices, Duto explores the convergence of a very Schnitzlerian kosmische and some more esoteric, and yes, noisier influences. The result, depending on your mood upon entering, can range from a mild bliss to an intense aural extravagance. Sounds explode or blossom like foliage in large patches around the place you are standing. Because of the wide range of frequency touched upon, you will want to turn this up very loud.
C. Yantis – ‘Strung Figments’ C40
Cody Yantis has been ramping up his productivity since the landing of Kerning, his painfully scarce LP on the trusty Blackest Rainbow label last year. I’m happy to (finally) officially welcome Mr. Yantis to the (let’s face it) highly sought-after status of Avant Archive Alumnus. He doesn’t waste this invitation, either. In a mode that gently acknowledges peers such as Steven R. Smith and Loren Connors, Yantis strikes out toward a land slightly more other-worldly. Let’s drink in the simplicity of composition here—there is a cleverness about leaving enough air for your work to breath. This is exactly what Yantis does, with headroom up to the heavens and beyond. Notes are crippled at ground level and yet somehow magically float out of our range of vision.
Sagas – ‘Signal Refracted’ C52
Pittsburgh’s psychedelic man about town, Matt McDowell was kind enough to lend me this nearly hour-long set of demented lap-steel airs. Circuit-mangled notes mix with pure, humming steel drone and create for us a kind of organically chaotic blend of sounds. It’s simply refraction, on many levels and in many different directions, and it demonstrates Matt’s skill with walking the line between a more western, industrialized vision, and another that finds its roots somewhere further east.
Kösmonaut – ‘Green’ C45
Kösmonaut is Patrick R. Pärk. Touching on styles from the late 1970s through the early 1990s, Pärk crafts what almost might substitute for a posthumous ransacking of one or several of these famed forefathers of electronic music. Of course, what holds my interest is not the fact that Kösmonaut is playing in a well-established and loved style, but that he also (fortunately for us) lends an exponent of experimental nature to the pieces. Of course we can identify the acid, the kraut, minimalism, and so on, when we are confronted with them. But we certainly can’t say when we’ll be confronted with these elements, and that’s what makes me smile, and of course, listen.