Jeph Jerman - 34°111'3"N 111°95'4"W
Glorious monaural recordings at an old disused windmill. The artwork seems a deliberate attempt to separate the work from classic "industrial" connotation, but the sounds are about as industrial as you can get... if by industrial you mean burnt out industrial ruins literally put to pasture. Thick, heavy metal clunking and clanking, unhurried, exploratory, semi-bemused sound recordist wandering around testing acoustic properties of steel thunking onto steel. The recurring image, for me, is of mic sunk deep into abysmal mine-shaft, or crypt, varied species of thunk nearly subsumed by receding low end reverberations conjuring spectral atmosphere verging on drone. Early on there actually is a droning passage delivered by, I'd guess, low-flying biplane. But for the most part sedate almost somber study in de-industrialized tranquility, funeral music for a once proud civilization mercifully laid to rust.
Jeph Jerman – Exploded View
Good and proper drone here, conjured from a range of rough n tumble sources. The lens on sources reveals innumerable cracks and fissures... the whole thing is a like a meditation on cracks and fissures, wrinkles and rumples, scratchings and scourings, rolled into willowing wisp of mid to low end rumble-burble. When the drone proper kicks in, it is principally of the whining industrial persuasion, machine-like drear rolling inexorably forward, though more tonal properties occasionally emerge. Perhaps concentrated listening is to be rewarded but as focus is dragged under the submerged convergence of drone and clutter conspires to drive the nodding attention into half-dazed lalaland, which is no bad thing!
Jeph Jerman and Steve Jansen – First Second
I wonder if the windmill on the cover is the same one from which the recordings in the above 34°111'3"N 111°95'4"W were taken. "Disused" would be putting it mildly, foregrounded by bleached skeletal remains on parched earth. With Jansen contributing "tape, electronics" we're not getting quite the rough n ragged MO repped in the solo work, but fairly rich hollowed out drone that seeks to set off the Jermanian materials on hand. This feels like structured presentation in proper performance space, so lacking the intriguing acoustic phenomena of a solo joint, less at the mercy of the elements more turning them to our own unholy devices.
V. Sinclair – Dedication
Nothing to do with Jerman, but I just happened to be listening to this around the same time as the above three and it seemed a good complement. There's a fair bit more "composition" to this, but there are affinities as far as crumbling, rumpled scrap sources collaged together in apparent haphazard dishevelment, heavy emphasis on very raw, ragged, texture, with subtle ambient undertone lending melancholic undulation. Could be mellowed out TNB/Organum, great stuff.
