German electronic label Mille Plateaux has always been a hit-or-miss affair with me. They specialize in very minimal music, best exemplified through the archetypal Clicks & Cuts series, in which the barest of sounds and glitches serve as building blocks for their artists’ work. Sometimes, it works wonderfully and sometimes, it’s just too dry and insubstantial. The best artists (Kit Clayton, Vladislav Delay) take these simple elements and build something shimmering and immersive, but too many others just lack the imagination.
Twerk is the alias of Shawn Hatfield, who uses found sounds and field-recordings to build music that’s surprisingly tangible given its ephermal foundations. He’s also a programmer who writes much of the software he uses for composition, but the process itself is thankfully a means and not an end. There’s nothing about this record that suggests an agenda, and it’s easily enjoyed on purely musical merits.
This is a very vibrant and organic record, sounding at times like Microstoria with a bit of air let in. Continued...