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5.0 out of 5 stars
Distill still offers a comforting sense of Disquiet in 2006, June 12, 2006
This review is from: Distill (Audio CD)
Turns out Amazon is the place to come to pick up
this very tasty CD (for mere dollars compared to
other sites!).
I listened to a fair sampling of Laswell-related
projects during the mid-1990s (he had waaaay too much
product) and this disc was one of the ones I really
liked. What we have here is a various artist
collection that remains remarkably cohesive on the
whole and also offers some stand-out tracks,
depending on your cup of tea (a darker one here, to
be sure).
I was heavily into isolationist sounscapes at the
time this was released and most of the artists
here contributed something to that ambient
sub-genre. Anyway, I lost sight of this CD for
some time and stumbled on it again recently and
have been enjoying a resurgence of interest in it!
It's a great late-night or early-morning piece to
sip your coffee and/or read to.
Disk One:
Opening with Paul Schutze's Green Evil, we have
an 11-minute plus excerpt from his album with the
same name (and I believe only one of two tracks
here that was featured on other albums). Schutze
has a very recognizable sound, and yet - to his
credit -plays it 'very' minimal here.
Next up is Pete Namlook's "Subharmonic Invocation
of the Dark Spirits," (heh, I guess we were all
conjuring up our share of closeted hob-goblins at
the time) nearly 13 minutes of cavernous rumblings
through a yawning abyss. A straight-ahead dark
ambient piece.
Next up is Haruomi Hosono's "Ether Vibes" and this
is a great track to insert at this point in the disk,
as it is a more 'spirited' track (unavoidable pun) -
not too dark, but more like a well-caffinated late
night drive. Mild, percolating percussions lend a
sense of lightness that pleasantly buoys the listener
up. A very nice, clever and worthy track for this
compilation. Closing Disk 1 is Mick Harris's "There,"
a 9-minute plus track of drones to appease your
inner Lull fan. What need I say about Harris, this
man knows what he's doing.
Disk Two:
Thomas Koner is a well-respected master of cold and
sparse ambient. He's one of those guys who you might
initially compare to someENOone else but who has really
taken things to a new level and gone his own way with
it. His work is typically out-of-print and therefore
goes for a premium when you do find it, but here
you'll get a good sample of what he does best on this
disk. This track actually has some percussive elements,
which are rare for him from what I've heard.
Next up is Anton Fier's "Blue Filter" which is followed
up by Tetsu Inoue's "Interlink." These are fairly good
tracks and don't sound 'totally' out of place here,
but to me they don't 'fit in' as well as the rest of
the disk's offerings. Blue Filter has some 'chirpy'
effects I don't care for that much and Tetsu's track
is nice but his approach isn't at all dark, it could
almost be ambient-chill (you know what I mean if you've
heard any of his other CDs).
Fier and Tetsu definitly offer much lighter sounding
pieces, but they are tolerable here overall. Finally,
getting things back on track a bit, Laswell himself
provides the longest piece on the set, the 30-minute
long "Black Dangers" (despite the title's name being
overly stated, it's a wonderfully sparse and barren
track that remains delightfully consistant for its
duration) and plays well with the rest of the CD set.
In closing, this is a rather solid double CD, "well
worth" any ambient fan's money (hey, Amazon currently
has a couple sets for around $6!). If you love the
darker domains of ambient, then make room for
this disk! Nuff said.
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