ARTICLES
Benoît Pioulard's Précis
Label: Dynamophone
Label: Hidden Shoal
ALBUMS
Aemae
A Lily
Arc Lab
Blotnik Brothers
Gui Boratto
Cagesan
Jeremy Caulfield
Loren Dent
Do Make Say Think
Eats Tapes
Enduser
Domink Eulberg
Explosions in the Sky
Michael Fahres
The Field
Frivolous
Maximilian Hecker
Hug
Hush Arbors
Jan-M. Iversen
Espen Jørgensen
Kattoo
O.Lamm
Bruce Levingston
Tobias Lilja
Lusine
Marcia Blaine School
The Missing Ensemble
Nebulo
Ölvis
Charlemagne Palestine
Palomar
Pornopop
The Postmarks
Propergol Y Colargol
The Retail Sectors
R/R Coseboom
Sankt Otten
Scratch Massive
Slow Dancing Society
Stars of the Lid
subtractiveLAD
Sunosis
Aoki Takamasa
Amon Tobin
Tokyo Mask
Kate Wax
Wes Willenbring
Windmill
COMPILATIONS/MIXES
Chaos.Lovers
Cryosphere
Hub: 2004-2005
Rufs
Satoshi Tomiie
3" /7" /10"/12"/EPs
Agnes
AM/PM
Arctic Sunrise
Audion
Characterize 1
Dartriix
Death is Nothing To Fear
Don't Be A Stranger
Einóma
Fusiphorm
Heartthrob
Human Nature
Infant Cycle / Antmanuv
Lilienweiss
Luci
Mauve
Paco Osuna
Ben Parris
Carola Pisaturo
Portable
Sutekh
System
Aoki Takamasa
Cortney Tidwell
Andy Vaz
The Missing Ensemble: Zeropolis
Low Impedance
As the title suggests, Zeropolis paints a dystopic portrait of ruined metropolises where all traces of humanity have been wiped out by some cataclysmic event. The bleak mood is sustained remarkably throughout the evocative, fifteen-minute opener “Old York” where muffled beats rumble intermittently amidst simmering washes of crackle and billowing clouds of industrial noise, and phantom tones bleed from electrical wires. Here and elsewhere, The Missing Ensemble (Daniel De Los Santos, John Sellekaers, and Mathias Delplanque) sculpts oceanic drones that purposefully suspend time and court disorientation and hallucinations.
Though the longer tracks, “Old York” and “Attaining Pt. 1,” enable the group's aesthetic to be explored most fully, shorter pieces present complete worlds too. “A Long Walk,” for example, guides the listener through a decimated landscape where flickers of noise still resonate, despite the absence of humanity. Interestingly, the group is joined on a number of pieces by trumpeter Ernst Karel and guitarists Lenny Gonzales and Quentin de Hemptinne, even though their instruments undergo radical alteration when embedded within the Ensemble's drones. Having said that, the stuttering bleat of Karel's horn is still recognizable when accompanied by skin-crawling noises in “Attaining Pt. 1,” and de Hemptinne's guitar flickers slip and slide provocatively over an intensifying cloud of haze in “Zero-sum.” One of the most appealing things about Zeropolis is its restraint; much of the material unfolds glacially and is pitched at a subdued level that enhances the aura of desolation.April 2007