Tag: minimal techno

Aoki Takamasa – Parabolica [2006; Op.disc]

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Slow-change beat patterns, gentle tone mutation, and jabs of static form the majority of this minimal techno album, with clinical song titling (e.g., the back-to-back “Ascari_Wet_Condition” and “AscariDry_Condition”) and the occasional vocal fragment accentuation.  Despite the presence of those grunts, gasps, and detached phonemes (blown up to a full and much-repeated verse in “I’m a Part of It”), the music feels too hard-set in its programming to communicate much in the way of a human element, and while the songs pull out some slick grooves, they also feel deeply (and self-consciously) stiff. 

The rhythms hardly ever break loose into full fluidity for more than half a minute or so, always leading to an interjected broken beat between bars or a gurgled moment of electronic overload to disrupt the momentum.  The programming is far too elaborate for that interference to be unintentional, but even recognizing the artsy dissatisfaction with uncompromised beat cycles, the music seems at odds with itself.  The technical skills on display are highly admirable, and taken on a moment-to-moment scale, there’s a lot to savor.  But as a larger musical experience, it feels more asymptotic than parabolic, coming close to but never quite reaching a satisfying completion.

Jetone – Ultramarin [2001; Force Inc. Music Works]

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Working with sculpted synth tones, hollow-bodied percussion samples, and stretched bursts of static, Jetone (a side-project of Tim Hecker) focuses on the rhythmic build-ups and interactions of the songs in Ultramarin, his second (and, to date, last) album under the Jetone name.  Housy 4/4 bumps collide with fractured sound injections, with the layers slowly cycling against each other to produce the majority of the album’s activity.  Though the sonics are undeniably produced with great polish and attentiveness to their shaping, the music itself tends to be rather dull, feeling something like auditory wallpaper, or excerpts from program executions. 

The main sense of Hecker’s personality in the music is communicated through its restraint and deliberation, and while the album does paint him as pains-taking in that regard, it rarely makes for stimulating listening (”Thousand Oaks” being the prime exception, with its more active bent and quicker fading in and out of loops).  Even when there’s clear effort built into shifting the loop qualities over a run (e.g., “Phoedra II”, with its swell and sink of percussion prominence), the songs don’t really go anywhere with it, but instead seem to circle in place for several minutes before simply ending.  Decent background noise, with a few moments worth attention, but overall, very low-key with its energy and innovation.