textura

Albums
Cory Allen
Belong
Bio / Larkian / Autistes
Black Swan
James Brewster
C.H. District
Crazy Penis
Robert Crouch
Demdike Stare
d'incise
Cezary Gapik
Ron Geesin
G. Night & G. Morning
Tim Hecker
Hole Punch Generation
Hopeless Local M. Band
E. De Jesus / Minus Pilots
Saito Koji
Kontakte
Little Fritter
MaCu
Sam Moss
Dustin O'Halloran
Olekranon
Örsten
Phillips / Hesse-Honegger
Pleq
Maceo Plex
Pietro Riparbelli
Salva
Shaula
Spartak
Daniel Steinberg
Colin Stetson
Subtle Lip Can
Tapage & Meander
Robert Scott Thompson
Ultralyd
Simon Whetham

Compilations / Mixes
DJ Bone
Pop Ambient 2011
Silence Was Warm Vol. 3
Superlongevity 5
v-p v-f is v-n
Werkschau

EPs
Benoit & Sergio
Mark Bradley
Eluvium
Encomiast
Ragle Gumm
Tevo Howard
Isnaj Dui
Clem Leek
Luv Jam
offthesky & Ten and Tracer
Sleeps In Oysters
Nobuto Suda
Totem Test
Morgan Zarate

Cory Allen: Pearls
Quiet Design

Pearls is Austin-based electronic composer and Quiet Design co-owner and manager Cory Allen's follow-up to his Hearing is Forgetting the Name of the Thing One Hears. Ostensibly labeled modern ambient, the new recording is hardly wallpaper music, even if there is a becalmed quality to it, as Allen builds the sounds deployed into a texturally rich and dense mass that's hardly stripped-down. Presented as four connecting movements, the material undergoes slow metamorphoses as it mutates over its concise thirty-six-minute running time. No instrumentation or technical details are included on the packaging—Allen presumably wishing the material to speak for itself—but related text clarifies that his production approach involves working with computer algorithms, processed electronic sounds, complex sine tones, and acoustic instruments, among other things.

In the opening sections “Strange Birds” and “Lost Energizer,” bright, pearl-like baubles (suggestive of electric piano) meander against a droning backdrop whose overlapping layers expand and contract and whose elements weave together into a thick, opaque coagulate; the fine-tuned focus Allen applies to the sonic definition of the materials used is exceptional, as attested to by the repeated blip of a signal and the cross-channel shuffle of a textural smear during the opening section. In the shimmering final section, “Blue Eyes,” placid bass tones and willowy atmospheres appear alongside a crackling haze that's suggestive of a fireplace. There's an eloquence to Allen's material which Pearls brings into sharp focus during its patient unfolding. Everything seems to arrive at its proper time and place, neither too slow nor too fast, and the gradual crescendo that the third section, “Isozaki Clouds,” works so subtly towards is merely one example of many captured on this fine outing.

February 2011