AUTISTICI: Slow Temperature – Early Works Vol.2 / Autistici Reworked – Resonating Wires (Audiobulb Records)

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Posted on Jul 25th 2010 11:32 pm

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Autistici: Slow Temperature - Early Works (Vol. 2) Autistici: Autistici Reworked - Resonating Wires

AUTISTICI
Slow Temperature – Early Works Vol. 2
AB030
Audiobulb Records 2010
11 Tracks. 51mins44secs

AUTISTICI
Autistici Reworked – Resonating Wires
AB032
Audiobulb Records 2010
10 Tracks. 55mins23secs

Slow Temperature – Early Works Vol. 2
Amazon UK: CD | DLD US: DLD Boomkat: CD | DLD iTunes: DLD

The last year has proved a rather busy period for Autistici, with no less than four releases between October last year and now, two of which collecting material recorded between 2001 and 2005 and previously unreleased, the other two part of a same project, the original, Complex Tone Test, being Autistici’s second album, the follow up to his 2008 12K debut Volume Object, and Resonating Wires, focussing on reworkings of one particular track from that album.

While Detached Metal Voice was a somewhat diverse collection, ranging from the relatively straightforward to the more overtly experimental, Slow Temperature, the second instalment of early material is an altogether much more coherent release and is in essence much closer to Newman’s two albums proper in the approach to textures and how they fit in together.

Built primarily from sounds sourced from everyday objects and ambient noises, the tracks collected on Slow Temperature documents how Newman progressively refined his sound by focusing on the subtle details of his source components, and found a voice of his own. This is particularly evident on pieces such as Soft Grey Generator, Stone Steps Into Water, Projections From A Prayer or Carved From Lips, as he arranges tiny sonic particles into complex abstract structures. By combining environmental sounds and noises with stark electronics and effects, Newman creates fascinating little worlds, each perfectly self-contained, which, despite sporadic familiar flavours, appear totally alien and, at times, quite hostile. These can take on extremely minimal appearances, as on Projections From Prayer for instance, which consists, for the most part, of very little more than a few layered metallic sounds, or Workshop For Ambitious Dreamers, with its short outbursts of electronics propelled into fragments of melody. At others, the soundscapes are far denser and richer, and have a propensity to change, sometimes quite radically, a number of times during the course of a piece, as is the case with Farm, which starts with clusters of noises and glitches, but soon evolves into a much more sombre drone, criss-crossed with statics, what sounds at times like a bumblebee, and at others, like a much more undefined hum, and, at one point, quite curiously, a duck.

Resonating Wires is a very different piece of work, and one which stems from one of the driving ideas behind Audiobulb, that of having a very diverse set of people work on a single project. All the tracks from this record are based on Resonating Wires, originally featured on Complex Tone Test, which was based on the sound made by the vibrating wire from an electric guitar which was processed and layered with other sounds. Taking this idea further, Newman asked ten artists, all evolving within an electronic or experimental field, to give their own interpretation of the piece. The result is, expectedly, very diverse, yet these tracks are made to work as an album in itself rather than a simple collection of remixes, and actually manage that pretty well. Although the interpretations differ greatly, from the microscopic sound and glitch placement of the Simon Scott or Francisco López versions to the autumnal overtones of reworkings by Jimmy Behan or Ian Hawgood & Danny Norbury or the more straightforward approach adopted by Sawako or He Can Jog, both going for a smooth and ethereal form of dreamy electronica close in essence to pop music, or by ISAN who have created a magical sound world, at times evocative of a box full of broken toys, for their typically melancholic version.

Each one of the tracks presented here is totally immersive and takes on some of the qualities of the original to mould them into something so unique that it is difficult to believe that these artists worked from the same set of recordings. Yet, there is something strangely consistent which binds these tracks together as part of a coherent whole, whether they are beautiful melodic pieces or more experimental revisions. What transpires is the fine processing work adopted by Newman on his original, and how malleable it is in the hands of his remixers. In fact, the very notion of remix doesn’t quite apply here, as each of the ten acts involved offer here a personal interpretation of Newman’s sound pool rather than simply rearrange his original composition.

These two releases, focusing on vastly different ideas and points in David Newman’s career, still appear very much linked to each other as they expose his thought process with music and sound and the way he has come to work with them. That both records, while made up of very diversified components, end up sounding like coherent works is a credit to his overall vision and his deep knowledge and understanding of his collaborators.

Slow Temperature: 4.6/5 Resonating Wires: 4.5/5

Autistici | Autistici (MySpace) | Audiobulb Records
Slow Temperature – Early Works Vol. 2

Amazon UK: CD | DLD US: DLD Boomkat: CD | DLD iTunes: DLD

Filed in Albums | Tags: ,
Comments (2)

2 Responses to “AUTISTICI: Slow Temperature – Early Works Vol.2 / Autistici Reworked – Resonating Wires (Audiobulb Records)”

  1. Headphone Commuteon 01 Aug 2010 at 3:40 pm

    Excellent writeup! I really enjoy Autistici’s recent output, as well as dedicated work towards running Audiobulb. It’s funny that you reviewed his work, since I just published an Audiobulb Special on Headphone Commute!
    http://bit.ly/b9Cqfc

  2. […] soundscapes from field recordings and electronics, and, while the Detached Metal Voice and Slow Temperature collections of early material released last year showcased quite a different side of his work, this […]