ELpH – 20′ to 2000: December (Zwölf) [1999; Raster-Noton]

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For the last installment in the 20′ to 2000 series, ELpH (a side-project of the group Coil, focused on self-generative sounds from their musical equipment) provide a single twenty-minute track of nebulous drones, glitchy clippings, and synthetic voices, with their name and title squelching out of the programmed phonemes.  The bassy presence of the strongest tone-drift lends things a sinister air, defused somewhat by a shift into acid-housy beats towards the end of the piece.  More than a little difficult to hook into, but there’s quite a bit more life to it than the mass of other entries in the series.