For a man who once recorded under the name Arcane Device, David Lee Myers warmly welcomes all the bells and whistles that current music-making technology affords. Though still fascinated by the eccentricities and mutable fiber of tape loops, his working methodologies in the aughts are every bit as unique as they were during the early 90s, the results just as satisfying. Still an ardent sound enthusiast, Myers' messes about with whatever noises tickles his fancy, jockeying them into position, orchestrating their dark maneuvers, juxtaposing the most unlikely of tones and gestures. What ultimately exudes from his studio laboratory is never less than categorically interesting, and often more likely quite arresting to the eardrum.
Having more or less jettisoned his trademark feedback machines, the fundamental principles of which bore fruit throughout his Arcane Device phase, Myers' recidivist roots show in the now seven-part series of recordings he's realized on his own Pulsewidth label. The less-is-more maxim has held Myers in good stead - it was practically an Arcane Device mandate, one which the artist reaped enormous rewards from, and not as archly minimalist as might have seemed initially - so the textural materials used on Multiplication's seven tracks operate out of a similarly reflexive compositional mojo. Though some of these CDR works have hit the marketplace in handsome yet austere clear clamshell cases, I strongly urge acquiring them in the hand-painted metal tins (limited to 200). Beautifully crafted artifacts all, dimpled with Myer's Pollock-like enamel dribbles, it's as if the colors erupted from their tin membranes, doppelganging Pulsewidth's immersive wealth of sounds in equal versatility, playfulness, and hue.
Multiplication was created, according to Myers, from just "guitar, looping devices, and processors, designed for the evening hours." It is indeed languid, but exquisite, listening, like watching mosquitoes flitter and skim the surface of a still pond, Myers' loops billowing out in similarly expanding circles. "Arc One" dances with the moonlit night, its febrile oscillations underpinned by a beefy bass clef. "Arc Three" is practically jaunty (in a reserved kind of way), wafts of Fripp & Eno breaking through the previous track's beckoning narcosis, revisited somewhat during "Arc Six," fragile string-struck notes eventually bent awry by jagged thermals on vertical rise. The moods sustained along the planes of Multiplication shift, alter, and play with perception, poltergeists haunting strange, barren regions, mingling amongst alien flora. Extraordinarily inventive Myers is, ringing out a vast sea of sound that enfolds about the ear; each resident arc reaches its intended apex and moves on, but it's afterimage permanently brands the frontal lobe. Be careful: left to his own un-arcane devices, Myers deigns you get lost in his masterful gallery of pulse forever.
Comments and Feedback:
|
