cv313: Seconds To Forever
Echospace [Detroit]

No one does oceanic better than Stephen Hitchell and Rod Modell, as pretty much anyone familiar with their Deepchord and Echospace output would agree. The two join forces again, this time under the name cv313, for a single-track recording that could conceivably be the most immersive one they've yet done. A few details first: apparently Seconds To Forever is a live recording that previously was issued, obviously in an abbreviated form, as a twelve-inch single under the same title, and now appears as an “Extended Live Excursion” form in a limited CD edition of 200 copies.

Despite being indexed as a single track, the piece nevertheless moves through distinct stages. The first is an extended, becalmed episode of gentle ripples that crest ever so peacefully; almost imperceptibly, the textures accumulate in density until the episode recedes to be supplanted by the slow-building second stage, whose understated rhythm patterns and vaporous swirls gradually swell in intensity. These billowing, meditative sections eventually come to an end about thirty-four minutes into Seconds To Forever, and their cessation immediately paves the way for a more agitated section to declare itself. Aquatic chords ricochet for a few minutes until the bass drum surreptitiously enters, locks itself into position, and then powers the material with an ever-building forcefulness. The material pursues its bubbly and aerodynamic thrust for a cooly euphoric twenty minutes before the beats drop out and decompression sets in, as it inevitably must. The last twenty minutes find the material returning to the contemplative style of the opening section, with long, drifting trails of metallic chords and gaseous emissions dominant once more.

A natural complement to the duo's earlier The Coldest Season release (issued on Modern Love in 2007 and credited to Deepchord presents Echospace), Seconds To Forever is as definitive a representation as can be had of the kind of refined soundsculpting Stephen Hitchell and Rod Modell have produced individually and together. If it doesn't radically depart from the style of the earlier recording, it nonetheless acts as a singular, complete statement of their collaborative artistry.

October 2011