Customer Reviews

Multiples

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

KFW's influences are pretty obvious, and he's happy to reveal them - Terry Riley, Steve Reich, Christoph Heeman. He knows all about tone clusters, overtones and shifting minimal rhythms. But the textures on 'Multiples' are so beautiful that it's never just an academic exercise. This is somewhere between 60s and 70s American minimalism and the more psychedelic analog drone-work of Kawabata Makoto (when he's not cracking skulls with Acid Mothers Temple) or Yamazaki Maso (when he's not cracking skulls as Masonna). One thing it's NOT is ambient, even if some of the treatments are a little Eno-esque.

There are signs here that Whitman is outgrowing his influencers, particularly on the glorious final piece (the last two tracks), and developing a really individual voice. He is certainly worth watching carefully. For now, 'Multiples' fills that nagging gap where you want something more sensual than conservatoire minimalism but more musically structured than psych-drone.

starting with tweaks, dots, loops and whistles and ending with arpgiated piano and organ drone I felt like I was on the dark side of the moon . . . . .yet warm . . .

I can appreciate how Whitman went to harvard and dicked around with their instrument archive more than I have to like it. Don't get me wrong, I am a massive fan of the ambient-drone-classical-noise genre a la Stars of the Lid, Jessica Rylan, david lee myers and ellen band, home made electronics, bending circuits, all that geeky know all that Keith Whitman embraces. But frankly I find his music unbearable. Which is a shame because he's probably still riding on that glowing but unknowing review @ pitchfork which has made him a demigod in many peoples eyes [oh my GOD, what thought provoking and intelligent titles 'Stereo Music For Acoustic Guitar, Buchla Music Box 100, Hewlett Packard Model 236 Oscillator, Electric Guitar And Computer (Part One) ' the kind of titles that have tried so hard to erase so much pretense that it loops back around and you want to shoot yourself).
Quite like the 'music itself'. I can imagine the guy at pitchfork, puffing at a pipe, Wittgenstein on hand, truly pretending to 'get' Stereo Music for Hi Hat. Some people say something this audacious is genius, I say something/one this audacious is scary because he could almost pass for a musician, if you forget that the first half of his career was built drilling drum-and-bass computer programming in your brain via the Hrvatski cell tower. Whitman is NOT a musician. He has no control over the often interesting sounds he produces from obscre machinery, the moment he begins to bring it together with 'stereo music for farfisa compact duo deluxe', he loses it all over again. What starts with a promising organ line and simple but satisfying drum pattern spirals into another useless mess of drone drone and drone. its as if his random clicking and chirping is a safety net for lack of compositional skills-- I would appreciate the dronage more if he had proven himself through some other avenue as a musician first, not just academically but intuitively.