textura

Albums
Autistici
Barker & Baumecker
Marc Barreca
Steve Bug
Terrence Dixon
Cornelius Dufallo
Christian Fennesz
Fur Coat
Stefan Goldmann
The Green Kingdom
Chihei Hatakeyama
Benjamin Herman
Insa Donja Kai
Julia Kent
Kid606
K. Leimer
loscil
Lymbyc Systym
MayMay
Markus Mehr
Mutamassik
Personable
Glen Porter
Tom Recchion
Karriem Riggins
Steve Roden
Strategy
System Of Survival
Henry Threadgill Zooid
Twigs & Yarn
Yousef

Reissued
John Coltrane
Roxy Music
Wayne Shorter

Compilations / Mixes
Deep Love 2
Fabriclive 65: DJ Hazard
Robag Wruhme

EPs
Ahern and Packard
Dreamsploitation
Henry & Louis
Jacksonville
Sven Laux
Phasen & Refurb
Pleq + Hiroki Sasajima
Sontag Shogun
Strategy
Strom Noir
Nobuto Suda
Andy Vaz

Personable: Spontaneous Generation
Peak Oil

Issued concurrently with Strategy's self-titled opus, the second twelve-inch vinyl release (also presented in a lenticular cover and in a 300-copy run) on the new Peak Oil imprint stokes a ferocious modular synthesizer blaze for a breathless forty minutes. Operating under the Personable moniker, LA-based M. Geddes Gengras has amassed a considerable following in the wake of a number of cassette releases on Stunned, Digitalis, and Ekhein, and now builds on that with Spontaneous Generation's three tracks of synth dynamism.

During the A-side's titular colossus, hot-wired synth patterns incessantly percolate for twenty-one marathon minutes while a blistering minimal techno groove roars determinedly down below. Though the tempo never flags and the material rarely strays from its obsessively single-minded path, “Spontaneous Generation” does undergo subtle shifts in texture and timbre such that episodes of different character emerge—an acidy one here and a momentary beatless one there, for instance—though never so much that the piece's overall character is compromised. The B-side picks up right where the first leaves off when “Billions of Christic Atoms” stokes as hellacious a jittery groove as the opener, and the title's well-chosen, too, given the wealth of staccato pulsations that dot its galaxial sputter and booming 4/4. Sedate is hardly the word for it, but “Series of Energies” does seem to inhabit a slightly less frenzied sphere than its brethren. But don't be waylaid by those opening moments: the eleven-minute slow-builder gradually works its clockwork pulse and twinkling patterns into a frenetic lather that's not all that far removed from the others. Not for the faint of heart, Personable's full-tilt, psyche-scarring synthesizer excursions are raw, their attack relentless, and their impact dizzying.

October 2012