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

Black Swan: In 8 Movements
Experimedia

In 8 Movements from Black Swan—another composer in a recent string with a preference for anonymity—is best experienced in a single, uninterrupted sitting so that one might better immerse oneself in its submerged, even drowned world. It comes into being with a dramatic symphonic flourish reminiscent of Richard Strauss, though one strains to catch the orchestral details in all their clarity when the material is wrapped in a blanket of hiss and crackle so thick it would do Philip Jeck proud. It's with such a memorable beginning that the single-track work sets sail on its winding, forty-four-minute journey through murky and occasionally ominous waters. Moving slowly through fog-drenched territory, the material grows increasingly hallucinatory as the listener is pulled into the vortex of Black Swan's phantom dreamscaping. Passages of classical music samples are woven into shadowy ambient-drone masses that drift in slow-motion; faint traces of violins emerge from the cavernous echo, and celestial choirs can be heard intoning serenely at the center of the haze. In its closing quarter, the piece eventually reaches a state of elegiac resolution and calm that can't help but call to mind Gavin Bryars' The Sinking of the Titanic (the version issued by Touch that features Philip Jeck the most natural reference point in this case) when Black Swan's choir voices rise up from their watery depths. One of the things that helps In 8 Movements stand apart from other classical-ambient recordings is the way in which the material subtly mutates, moving as it does from a classical segment into a drone section, then back again into a different classical passage and so on. As a result, a travelogue feel literally declares itself as the work follows a creeping path that is rarely predictable yet ultimately feels natural.

February 2011