Article
Lucy

Albums
Alphabets Heaven
AREA C
Aidan Baker
Black Devil Disco Club
Cluster
Dakota Suite & Errante
Davis & Machinefabriek
Deaf Center
Fancy Mike
FM3
Forest Swords
Frivolous
Hakobune
Kyo Ichinose
Juv
Deniz Kurtel
Sven Laux
Lucy
Stephan Mathieu
Joel Mull
Near The Parenthesis
Netherworld
nunu
Fabio Orsi
Penalune
Pleq
port-royal
Rainbow Arabia
Todd Reynolds
Roedelius
Rosenqvist and Scott
Steffi
Sublamp
SubtractiveLAD
Tapage

Compilations
Back and 4th
Future Disco Volume 4
SMM: Context
Tasogare: Live in Tokyo

EPs
Aardvarck & Kubus
Corrugated Tunnel
Debilos
Djamel
Tolga Fidan
Flowers and Sea Creatures
Anne Garner
Mike Jedlicka / Cloudburst
Mo 2 Meaux-2
Proximity One: Remixes
Darren Rice
Sepalcure
Sharma + Krause
Josh T
Talvihorros
Francesco Tristano
Widesky
Dez Williams

AREA C: Map of Circular Thought
Preservation

Erik Carlson received justifiable acclaim for his 2009 live set The Planetarium Project, an ambitious double-disc collection that saw him collaborating with Black Forest / Black Sea, Eyes Like Saucers, and Mudboy. Issued on Preservation as the second installment in a limited-edition CD series (300 copies available), Map of Circular Thought finds the Providence, Rhode Island-based multi-media artist following it up with seven mini-constellations of flicker and thrum produced using guitar, organ, keyboard, and drum machine. Carlson uses his main instrument, the guitar, in refreshingly unconventional manner as a remarkably rich generator of textural detail. With the guitar's sonic range presumably extended via effects and pedals, Carlson weaves dense flurries of rhythm and melodic patterns into the album's multi-tiered and incessantly mutating settings. The album is satisfyingly paced with three brief pieces interspersed amongst four longer ones ranging from ten to twenty-two minutes.

Carlson doesn't call attention to his music in the way some might by using grand gestures, crushing climaxes, and sonic extremes; more often than not, he opts for an even-toned, contemplative flow where sounds congeal into wholes rather than splinter apart. His approach is more artful and nuanced by comparison, and one would be better to think of him as a rigorous architect of sound, someone who constructs meticulous structures using numerous small elements as his palette. Never is that more apparent than during “An After Image” where warbling pulsations initially lend it a kosmische musik feel before the gradually accumulating layers build it up into something considerably more intricate, even grandiose. Some of the pieces are purer guitar-based explorations (e.g., “Felt, Not Seen”) while others veer closer to simulated small ensemble settings wherein drum machines anchor organ and guitar interplay (e.g., “Twos”). In addition to “In Toward the Wires,” a fuzz-toned dirge that occasionally flirts with noise, there's the epic “Ebbs to a Steady Burn,” a model of patience that subtly swells over the course of its twenty-two minutes into a vibrant, droning stream of electrical radiance.

March 2011