Articles
2009 Top 10s and 20s
King Midas Sound
Starke

Albums
36
Aardvarck
Matias Aguayo
Anaphoria
Anduin
Arbol + Fibla
Aufgang
Beneva vs. Clark Nova
Black to Comm
Bvdub
Cornstar
Dinky
Enola
Fieldhead
FOURM / Shinkei / Turra
Billy Gomberg
The Green Kingdom
Chihei Hatakeyama
Ian Hawgood
Marek Hemmann
Khate
King Midas Sound
Marcel Knopf
Robot Koch
Lambent
Shinobu Nemoto
Olekranon
Laurent Perrier
Piano Magic
Porzellan
Pylône
Ryonkt
Shadyzane
Slow
Small Color
Solomun
The Sound of Lucrecia
Stray Ghost
The Use of Ashes
Sylvie Walder

Compilations / Mixes
Sebo K
Will Saul
Tama Sumo
VOLTT Amsterdam Vol. 1

EPs
Blindhæð
Roberto Bosco
Franco Cangelli
Dieb
dub KULT
Abe Duque/Blake Baxter
Gemmy
Christopher Hobbs
Duncan Ó Ceallaigh
Christopher Roberts
The Sight Below
Two Fourteen
Van Der Papen
Andy Vaz
Vetrix
Eddie Zarook

DVD
Optofonica

Cornstar: Lulla
Visceral Media

Lulla apparently arrives ten years after the first collaborative effort (With For Intoned) by Cornstar duo John Latartara and Khristian Weeks. Why it took so long is anyone's guess but it's ultimately a moot point. Taken on its own terms, Lulla is a satisfying enough mini-album (thirty-five minutes in total) whose eight electro-acoustic settings opt for glitch-laden, folk-inflected placidity more than anything else. The material came to fruition via long-distance file-sharing, with Weeks creating all of the original raw audio files and Latartara then editing and arranging the pieces into their final form.

In essence, the tracks form restless, computer-generated whirlpools of fragmented guitar and piano sounds. The opener “Elling” offers a meditative four minutes of what sounds like music boxes and organs singing in joyous harmony, with the material's fluttering clicks and trills suggestive of Oval in a peaceful mood. Much of the album, in fact, is reminiscent of Oval in general style but with much of the abrasiveness removed. The jagged guitar shards of “Refrained” stutter as relentlessly as any Oval track ever did, while “Flutter” and “Dream Seeds” are radically besieged and broken-up by computer processing. Even if there is a derivative dimension to the album's contents, there's also no denying Lulla's occasional prettiness: its title piece is a pretty reverie of glistening and shimmering sounds, and look beyond the surface manipulations and you'll find a melancholy heart beating at the center of “Stars Eyes Heart.”

December 2009