Pulsar Studies review

[Sean Cooper <scooper@xxxxxxxx>]

the following review of kim cascone's "pulsar studies 1-20" was written ~6
months ago for urban sounds, but it was never used, so i'm posting it here
instead. first one to count the number of micro-materialist 'conceits' wins
my indifference.

sc

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Kim Cascone | Pulsar Studies 1-20 | Falsch 2000

The Falsch label is a close affiliate of Austrian imprint Mego, whose
releases from Fennesz, Pita, General Magic, and Farmers Manual, among
others, have gradually delineated a new space of digital experimentation.
Unlike the latter label, however, Falsch releases are bits and bytes, not
CDs and records; with a catalog including Voicecrack, Infoscan, and Farmers
Manual/Hecker side-project cd_slopper, Falsch makes MP3 files available
through its Web site (http://fals.ch) at no charge. Kim Cascone's "Pulsar
Studies 1-20" is among the latest batch of Falsch product, and consists of
20 one-minute exercises in pulsar synthesis -- a sound synthesis technique
developed by computer music pioneer Curtis Roads. (Roads' forthcoming book
"Microsound" deals extensively with the technique.) The most immediate
impression given by this handful of sound files is the absence of
metaphorical context; gone, for the most part, are the ambient leanings
that followed from Cascone's Heavenly Music Corporation releases into his
more recent digital works (including "blueCube( )" and "cathodeFlower").
Rather than the three dimensions of a putatively acoustical space, the
tracks comprising "Pulsar Studies" are flattened out onto surfaces
consisting of minutely detectable event-layers. Sounds crackle and fizz as
they make contact, their jostling edges producing emissions of sound
particles that aren't so much heard as witnessed via the constantly
displaced perspective of the ear. The qualities of the sounds are not
unlike those of laboratory composers such as Barry Truax or John Bischoff,
or even the sound-card tweakery of the aforementioned Hecker (his "Xackpy
Breakpoint" is a good point of reference). As per the title, Cascone makes
no pretense to this being anything but an exercise in <i>pour l'art</i>
sound design, but as pure sculpture, "Pulsar Studies" is both fascinating
and enriching -- gritty victuals for the starved ear. [sc]

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