KYLE BOBBY DUNN: Ways Of Meaning (Desire Path Recordings)

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Posted on May 4th 2011 01:46 am

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Kyle Bobby Dunn: Ways Of Meaning

KYLE BOBBY DUNN
Ways Of Meaning
PATHWAY002
Desire Path Recordings 2011
06 Tracks. 40mins28secs

The folllow up to the rather excellent A Young Person’s Guide To Kyle Bobby Dunn (Low Point) and contribution to Standard Form’s Rural Route series, Ways Of Meaning sees Brooklyn-based Canadian sound artist Kyle Bobby Dunn return to the reflective drone-based work for which he has been gaining praises across the board. For the occasion, he has stripped down his palette to very little more than guitar and organ, processing them into vast fluid soundscapes.

The second release on burgeoning vinyl-only imprint Desire Path, Ways Of Meaning is quite a pastoral effort, built around long progressive themes for which Dunn arranges his reduced sound sources into celestial drapes which appear to float effortlessly, defying gravity with elegant swirls and drones. This album seems to exist in a semi conscious state, as if the reality of Dunn’s instruments was filtered through a haze of vapourous effects and delays. Any grain, flicker of distortion or speck of interference is thoroughly ironed out, leaving only the purest tones through. Sounds are stretched to the extreme, modelled into flawless textures which continuously change aspect, yet remain dense and cinematic.

At times, the guitar seem to occupy most of the low end while the organ can be heard piercing through the higher registers, especially on Stratuit or Canyon Meadows, a looped bowed electric guitar accentuates this on the latter, making it sounds like distant ringing bells. There is something chime-like developing pretty much throughout this album, but it is often applied with much more subtlelty. It has a wonderful brushed quality on pieces such as Dropping Sandwiches In Chester Lake or Movement For The Completely Fucked for instance, slowly developing as various components are progressively brought into light, while this takes a deeply introspective and serene form on New Pures or Touhy’s Theme, as Dunn carves exquisite drones.

While Kyle Bobby Dunn works from a somewhat restricted sound pool, his soundscapes often become like vast oil slicks, their highly polished surfaces reflecting into infinite hues and spreading relentlessly. Their composition may remain somewhat mysterious, but Dunn manages to create a series of stunning evocative pieces which build on the pastoral nature of his elegant sound processing.

4.4/5

Kyle Bobby Dunn (MySpace) | Desire Path Recordings

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  1. […] gathered rare and long unavailable material onto two discs, and last year’s excellent vinyl-only Ways Of Meaning (Desire […]