Articles
2009 Artists' Picks
Lymbyc Systym

Albums
Cory Allen
aus
The Bird Ensemble
Canaille
Catlin & Machinefabriek
Greg Davis
Loren Dent
Dirac
Drafted By Minotaurs
Flica
Sarah Goldfarb & JHK
Gown
John Hollenbeck
Viviane Houle
I/DEX
Akira Kosemura
Andrew McKenna Lee
Le Lendemain
LRAD
Lymbyc Systym
Melorman
Muskox
The Mercury Program
Nikasaya
Northerner
nörz
Noveller / Aidan Baker
Redshape
Marina Rosenfeld
Stripmall Architecture
Sturqen
Wes Willenbring
The Tony Wilson Sextet
Julia Wolfe
Peter Wright
Zelienople

Compilations / Mixes
Blackoperator
Glimpse Four:Twenty 03
Kod.eX
Portland Stories

EPs
Molnbär Av John
Tommi Bass & B.B.S.C.
Julian Beau
Colours-Volume 5
Dalot
Echologist
Simon James French
Geiom & Shortstuff
General Elektriks
Geskia
Ernest Gonzales
Gradient
Jacksonville
Joker
Ann Laplantine
Loko
Machinefabriek
Stefano Pilia
Damian Valles

Cory Allen: Hearing is Forgetting the Name of the Thing One Hears
Quiet Design

Hearing is Forgetting the Name of the Thing One Hears by Austin-based avant-garde composer and Quiet Design Records owner Cory Allen arrives with some modest degree of supporting background detail. It's classified as a minimalist work that's based on the philosophy of artist Robert Irwin and whose focus is on “the invocation of pure aural sensation.” The non-generative compositional approach Allen brings to the recording's five pieces gives them an open-ended and organic sense of development and consequently the crystalline sounds locate themselves midway between stasis and movement. Produced from computer algorithms, processed electronic sounds, sine tones, and raw CPU data, the recording's forty-four minutes prove to be both soothing and diverting, the kind of peaceful material that's equally capable of entrancing the attentive listener or functioning as environmental tinting. Throughout the release, bright bell and organ tones reverberate in seemingly random though not displeasing manner, much like unpredictable patterns produced by outdoor wind chimes. Allen nicely complements the musical content with a two-colour, twelve-page booklet whose images of overlapping circles offer a deft analogue to the abstract simplicity of the sound modules. The album title's well-chosen too, as it captures the paradoxical dimension of Allen's static-motion material, which seems tailor-made to repeat in a constant loop for hours on end.

January 2010