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 INTRANSITIVE
COMPILATION
Various Artists
Variious
2001
Intransitive
55.29 / 71.31
The first CD I ever bought over the 'net was an Intransitive disc: Stone
Blind by Howard Stelzer. I liked that, and I like this, the
latest Intransitive offering to drop through the letterbox. A twenty-two
track compilation of interestingly varied electronic hum, whine and skitter,
packaged in a suitably minimalist sleeve designed by Richard Chartier,
Variious succeeds not only in its individual parts, but as a coherent
whole. Featuring such consistently inventive artists as John Hudak,
Michael Prime, Marc Behrens and John Watermann, as
well as the always excellent Chartier himself and Howard Stelzer
(here in collaboration with Brendan Murray) the two CDs veer back
and forth across the sound spectrum, from the noisy efforts of Watermann
and Pimmon to the barely audible contributions of Toshiya Tsunoda
and Nosei Sakata. The dense, drony clatter of The Brutum Fulmen's
'Dusk' is a standout for me, as is Justin Bennett's 'Grasslands',
cobbled together to stunning effect from field recordings made in France
and Spain a decade ago. Top of the pile for me however is Jerome Noetinger's
alarming feedback piece (confused on the track listing with Roel Meelkop's
more contemplative effort, which follows it). Beginning from an impossibly
high pitch, reminiscent of Minoru Sato's track on the RLW tribute
compilation Tulpas, the track descends into swarming tortured electronics
that seethe from the speakers in complex, layered bursts and swells of
sound. It's even better on headphones, so long as you figure it's worth
never being able to hear anything that way again. Another favourite is
Michael Prime's puffing, bleeping 'Steam Radio', which sounds not
unlike the stuff on his excellent Domestic Science CD. I bought
Domestic Science over the 'net last year from a site based in Los
Angeles, five and a half thousand miles away. A week or so later it showed
up, and I saw on the sleeve that Michael Prime lives about ten minutes
walk away from my house on the outskirts of London's suburbia. Another
fine example of modern technology shrinking the world.
STEWART GOTT - 29 October 2001
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