Günter Müller has by now eclipsed the concept of "electroacoustic improvisor" to become one of our foremost sculptors of sound. A rugged experimentalist and instant adaptor despite who he collaborates with (a list far too lengthy to be recounted here), Müller's chameleonic approach, coupled with an endless thirst for new sonic discovery, is held in the highest esteem amongst both novice and cognoscenti, be they fellow artists or enthusiasts of his work; anyone considering picking up a light pen, booting up a laptop, or getting itchy with an iPod needs to ensure that Müller is required listening in their curriculum.
O'Leary is a new name on the scene, but Skyshifter immediately reveals he's completely simpatico with Müller's particular brand of genius. Both are credited using electronics and samples, Müller further augmenting the canvas with his inimitable percussive skills and iPod manipulations, O'Leary bringing various "implements," ebow, and guitar to bear upon the proceedings. Overall, it's nigh on impossible to discern who does what, but on a recording of this rich a magnitude, it makes little difference — O'Leary and Müller form a perfect hive mind, buzzing, vamping, and trolling their way amongst numerous deathworld environments across Skyshifter's six chapters.
The opening piece is a bit reminiscent of Müller's own landmark solo recording Eight Landscapes, as the duo weave a shimmering tapestry of alien drone, scattering bits of harddrive flotsam across squalls of ringing jetsam. "Improvisational" this recording might be, but aesthetically more than a few chronologically cultural links are forged with pioneer soundscapers of yesteryear (Xenakis, Stockhausen, Babbitt, Subotnick) more so than any straightforward diagrammatical connection with post-jazz avant-gardists. On the bravura second piece, the duo delight in erecting a quakebasket quiverfest of extraordinarily well-articulated electronic music: gently warbling pulses course and murmur as they feint between preening tone clusters and software backwash, a bubbling cauldron of intense sonic energy that is factory resistant to pigeonholing. More telling, when O'Leary later smelts some burning "metal" guitar upon Müller's taut plasma coils, its appearance is hardly incongruous; rather, the smell of singed steel merely adds another olfactorous dimension to an already pungent stew.
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