Frank Zappa once said that a musically-minded person could walk into a factory and hear rhythm everywhere. What some people consider noise, others consider music (and the opposite is often true as well!). One man’s air conditioner drone is another’s trance-inducing harmony. I can attest to this, as I spent some time in high school recording train whistles and various automobile horns with the intent of analyzing their intervals.
Incidentally, the horn of a 1982 Subaru is a minor third-D and F.
Both of these composers strike me as like-minded folks, the kind of people who are as fascinated by mundane sound as I am.
Playthroughs is a startling record. It consists of drones and sustained tone clusters, and that’s about it. What makes the record so incredible is just how much Whitman can do with so little. The record opens with “Track3a,” which comprises two sine waves spaced a major second apart. They’re held close to the front and center channel, and the only real development is the carefully controlled bleed-in of overtones, which subtly but definitely imply a major key. The piece seems surprisingly short, but it’s just a lead-in to “Feedback Zwei,” which relies on an organ for the fundamental tones. At about 3:40, a wash of guitars like half-heard Kevin Shields creeps up in the distance. It’s only the slightest crescendo, and it never rises above a faint whisper, but it hangs over everything like a warm gauze.
“Fib01a” uses gently undulating tones that sound like reversed bells for its underpinnings while static pops in the peripheral channels, while “Acgtr Svp” relies on a metallic-sounding string sample to maintain its drone. It starts out sounding like an amplified string quartet, then imperceptibly modulates to a sustained acoustic guitar (and, briefly, a farfisa) while random-seeming notes poke through the ether from time to time to assert some tonality.
“Modena” takes 17 minutes to close out the record, and doesn’t waste a one. It’s the only track with a real rhythmic structure to speak of, using repeating tones similar to Takemura’s “Kepler” to keep things grounded. Barely-heard tones come and go to imply harmonic motion, and the overall effect is similar to Steve Reich’s Music for 18 Musicians. Like “Fib01a,” it rises to the gentlest and most gradual of climaxes, only to fall into silence just as slowly. There’s something joyful and exhultant about it that doesn’t resort to the least bit of sentimentalism, and like the rest of the record, even though you can’t consciously remember it, something about it sticks with you long after it’s over.
It would be tempting to lump Playthroughs in with the likes of Pansonic, but it would also be completely inaccurate. Words don’t really do it justice, since any description implies an extreme sort of minimalism and a lack of substance. That’s just not the case. This is an absolutely engrossing record, and one that has to be heard on headphones. Whitman knows how to make the most subtle developments engaging, and that’s a rare gift.
Tim Hecker (also known as Hvratski for you Venetian Snares fans) also uses drones as the basis for a large part of his music, but his execution is worlds apart from Whitman’s. Where Playthroughs is immaculate and serene without a single note out of place, Haunt Me is a record full of extraneous sounds and rough edges. “Music for Tundra” has a single minor chord running through the background while backmasked guitar samples creep in like radio interference. It’s strongly remniscient of Biosphere’s Substrata in atmosphere. The track maintains its forward motion through gradual changes, as does most of the record. While Playthroughs hangs in the air like an ice sculpure, Haunt Me has a narrative flow of sorts. “Arctic Lover’s Rock” continues with the same pallette, but with more edginess. The noise creeping in at the edges takes on more urgency, which builds into “The Work of Art in the Age of Cultural Overproduction.”
Yes, that sounds like a Dj Spooky track title, and no, I’m not typing out again. The track itself is overwhelming, opening with pulsating marimbas, over which various bowed-guitars cut in and out. Though it occupies the same drumless space (to quote Main) as the others, the track has a propulsive forward motion, and it actually manages to swing from angry to despondent with only the slightest bits of surface change. It also sounds like it might need some sample clearance from the aforementioned Steve Reich, though that could just be my interpretation. The whole track is a glorious and loud piece of machinery that seems to hang and sputter better than most glitch artists could do with an army of drum machines, and it does it using only two chords. Wow.
“October” is a relief, draining off the pressure a bit with a few hisses and pops placed over a mournful organ chord. “Ghost Writing” opens with a sample from the game-show Jeopardy which, in this context, seems to take on an entirely different and unworldy meaning. The record seems to sink a bit into ambient territory at this point, which isn’t a problem here, because Hecker keeps things interesting underneath the surface, and he’s got the talent to hold the same chord for seven or eight minutes without boring the listener. “Boreal Kiss” has a semi-audible bell tone that almost sounds like an air-raid siren in the distance. “Night Flight to Your Heart” (wasn’t that a music-video show in the ’80s?) closes things out, and although a drum loop pokes its head out every now and then, it’s more an adornment than foundation. Like everything else here, it comes and goes like a fragment of a half-remembered dream.
For me, this is mostly a record about distance and wide-open spaces at night. Your mileage may vary. The cd came with some sort of overlay which quoted some obscure author rambling philosophically about the sky. Not only is it pretentious and unneccessary, it’s intrusive to attach a single image to it. This isn’t the kind of record that needs literal interpretation. Oh, and that’s a compliment.
Minimalism is always a shaky bet. Far too many musicians take it as either an intellectual conceit or an excuse for laziness (the Phillip Glass school). It gets worse with electronic music, where drum programming has become a safety blanket capable of covering up all kinds of sloppiness and lack of effort. By ejecting the percussion and pushing the usual background elements to the front, both of these records take a huge risk. Luckily, it works here. Anyone can do simple, but it takes a real gift to work with this kind of subtlety.
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