Mar 17, 2012

CANNERY IN A COAL MINE


Robert Turman
Flux
Spectrum Spools reissue SP010
1981/2012

Well, ain’t the world fulla surprises? Having heard this reissue was out just before I cracked the piece on Dilloway’s new double-twelve, I figured anybody collaborating with him oughta be a sore for sighted ears. Ain’t no way! Once again, a lack of Internet research permits shock and amazement—though I do still get the feeling this is this the big ol’ thumb on his handful of releases. Who woulda suspected a kind of muted, Sunday afternoon gamelan stone-out? Flux straight-up trickles out the stereo and collects in resonant pools on the kitchen floor, sneaking out the back door and into the grass—meaning, there is something at once artificial about it, yet it modulates in an almost defective, loping way. There is evidence of tape fiddling and plenty of cue marks (which’ll surely drive Scott Foust up an elm  –Ed.) which dunks the whole affair in the deep end of homemade “ambience,” and all for the better. I never heard so many shades of gray at once!

I’ll leave the moment-by-moment Eno and Basinski comparisons to some other schmuck; ain’t no cut-n-paste half-steppin here. You know what, I’ll spare you the contemporary analogs, too. Just swear you’ll give this a peek. Deal?

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