Re: [microsound] ? shirttrax

["leg to the arm yeah leg-arm to the head :: ::" <awesoma_powa@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

this is a review i wrote for my website, but haven't posted as of yet.  also 
contains a bonus review of deupree/chartier.

shirt trax _good news about space_ cd (or) 1999
taylor deupree & richard chartier _spec_ cd (12k 1007) 1999

    two more CDs of minimalist pops, bleeps, hums and clicks.  shirt trax 
is a project of one member of ultra-minimal techno outfit snd and another 
fellow; their take on the ?microwave? style is somehow a little giddier than 
the more common faux-academic seriousness.
    although I don?t think anything on this album is quite as good as their 
track on the _decay_ compilation (ash int?l), some of the longer tracks are 
quite entertaining, experimenting with actual rhythms and very slow movement 
of sound waves through filtration and pitch bending.  shirt trax don?t 
modulate; they wriggle.  tinnitus sufferers beware.
    taylor deupree (minimal techno stalwart, head of the 12k label) and 
richard chartier?s (minimal sound experimenter) _spec_ disc takes a more 
laid-back, zen approach to the oeuvre, with small arcs and taps slowly 
swelling across an absolutely blank sound canvas, with it?s strength lying 
in the slowly evolving micro-rhythms and layers of delicate, glass-like 
sine-resonances that take up the foreground, and the very subtle background 
developments.
    it kind of reminds me of noto?s ?kern.rotar? from _kerne_ (plate
lunch), but unlike many other microsound/minimalist records I don?t find 
myself getting annoyed with the sheer repetitiveness of it; credit deupree 
and chartier with finding an unexpectedly complex order in the cellular 
chaos.  bangin? on a subatomic scale.

(i apologize for not referencing deleuze, attali, vaneigem or derrida in 
this review.)

-b.


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