This is generally, though not entirely, a calming smoothed-out ambience of programmed and played saxophone. I don’t understand the technology and don’t need to, but with the looping and effects and other programmed sound – some rhythmic; some ethereal – there is a wonderful wash of repeating resonances that calm in their programmed control.
I presume much of the ‘conventional’ sound is recorded and
played back, so piano chords are struck within the programming, though the horn
on title track Aytche is played/recorded by JP Carter.
I said ‘calming’ though not ‘entirely’: fourth track Smokestack is scorched by an electronic
invasion of noise [Nic Bragg on guitar], this nearly obliterating the much
slower underscore of an ambient tune on repeat. It is relentless and brilliant.
Closer Belching Smoke returns with the exact same intensity in case any
listener had forgotten what a musical onslaught sounds like, having been
caressed into forgetfulness across the intervening numbers.
There are drips and scratches and definitely much breathing –
sax breaths – that have been programmed into the mix; echoes/looping too; the
brush on drums. Horn sounds arrive like night-time trains, Doppler-drifting
away in Long Swim, a sudden New
Orleans peel diverting at an invisible junction. Key taps on penultimate Chopping
Wood are like fluttering butterflies passing a mic, and someone with an
industrial stapler is in the background pinning the occasional caught wing to
the walls but otherwise regularly missing with each punch.
A beautiful noise throughout.
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