Jack Dangers: Music For Planetarium
Brainwashed
Let's be clear about one thing: though Meat Beat Manifesto member Jack Dangers is name-checked as “the Godfather of Dubstep” in Brainwashed's accompanying info, Music for Planetarium is anything but dubstep. Issued in tandem with the tenth MBM release, Autoimmune, Music for Planetarium consists of forty-five minutes of Electronic Tape Music created for the T.I.T. Planetarium in Budapest and was recorded “under a quilt at night in Marin County, California.” Certainly the love and care that went into the release is evidenced by the exquisite letterpress-printed sleeve, and the music's galaxial character is conveyed not only by track titles like “Polarissima Borealis” and “Whirlpool Galaxy” but by the album's drones.
After an “Explanation...” sets the stage with an unidentified man's reportage (“The music that has been recorded on this record has come to me from outer space / I have been instructed by a person from another planet to bring this music to the attention of the people on this earth / I have had direct contact with people from other planets and have spoken with them on many occasions / I have ridden in their spaceships; they have taken me to their planets and taken me back again several times…”), Dangers moves the material into soundscape territory with restrained drones of suitably ethereal character dominating. Gentle winds blow across glimmering tones in “Large Magellanic Cloud” and “Polarissima Borealis” while the barren expanses of deep space are suggested by the whistling whispers drifting through “Minkowski's Object” and “Fourcade-Figuero.” The ambiance is slightly more disturbed in “Pinwheel Galaxy” as tones drift more aggressively but in large part the recording's extra-terrestrial transmissions and swirling masses are pitched—not displeasingly so, either—at a relatively ambient level of restraint.July 2008