KYLE BOBBY DUNN
Rural Route No. 2
SFRR002
Standard Form 2010
02 Tracks. 20mins40secs

Amazon UK: DLD US: DLD Norman Records: CD iTunes: DLD

Earlier this year, Brooklyn-based sound artist Kyle Bobby Dunn released the rather sumptuous A Young Person’s Guide To Kyle Bobby Dunn, a double album which collected a series of atmospheric drone-based pieces, some of which had previous been released as a download-only album, Fervency, others which had until then never been released. Out on the artisanal imprint and print house Standard Form, based in Toronto, Rural Route No. 2 is part of a series of limited 3” CDRs which has seen inputs from Damian Valles, Martin Clarke, Alex Durlak, The Gentleman Losers and Machinefabriek.

Following a similar path to A Young Person’s Guide…, Rural Route No. 2 contains two tracks, each lasting around ten minutes, built from guitar, strings, organ and radio mutations, all processed beyond recognition. The resulting soundscapes are extremely vast and epic, yet they also appear intimate and emotional. Warm, hazy, constantly fluctuant, they wrap around the listener like fog on a cold winter morning, softening all rough edges in the landscapes, filtering and deflecting light, and isolating those who dare venturing too deep. Each sound appears in soft focus, offering very few clues to its original form, left in suspension between two states. And while Dunn occasionally layers them to give sections of his compositions more intensity, the sound formations remain for the most part fairly minimal and contemplative.

Of the two pieces collected here, Dissonant Distances is the densest and most cinematic. Throughout, Dunn engineers a gentle ebb and flow, slowly building up momentum and intensity, then pulling it all back in the first half to start all over again in the second. Everything happens on a gigantic scale here. The progression is extremely slow yet sustained and uniform. It is never clear when new components are added or taken away, or what they may be, even, yet there is a constant flow in which sounds are transformed and altered. There are hints of distortion at times, but these are processed so much that their harsh envelops have lost much of their inherent abrasive nature.

On Senium III, Dunn works with clearer sound forms, yet their nature remains for the most part difficult to identify. The smooth regular pulses of processed guitars which forms the backbone of the piece emit a warm resonating glow throughout, but unlike Dissonant Distances, there is no great variation in density over the course of the piece. Instead, Dunn maintains its pace and substance, inflicting changes not from altering the consistency of his sound structure, but by relentlessly regenerating it.

Whilst recording these two pieces, Dunn visited some of his childhood’s favourite places, in Calgary, Alberta, which eventually led him to feed some of the ghostly memories and emotions he felt into his music. Both pieces make extensive use of space, yet they do so in very different ways. While Dissonant Distances evolves on an impressive scale, Senium III does so at human level, creating an interesting contrast between the two. Kyle Bobby Dunn creates here a beautiful piece, his particular use of sounds and textures making this a wonderfully evocative and uncompromising work.

4.4/5

Kyle Bobby Dunn (MySpace) | Standard Form
Amazon UK: DLD US: DLD Norman Records: CD iTunes: DLD