The merging of a vast set of electronic and experimental styles isn't surprising from Mark Spybey and Phil Western, who share credit in the band Download. The British Spybey brings a long history including time in Zoviet France and his own Dead Voices in Air; Vancouver based Western is a founding member of Download and also PlatEAU, Frozen Rabbit, and Off And Gone. All of these bands have worked in the more experimental side of electronica, steering clear of techno while blurring the lines between beats and pure electroacoustic sound.
What Spybey and Western build together crosses between electro-acoustic, electronica, and Zoviet-style hallucinogenic styles, with a good understanding of modern compositional ideas and timing. The pieces were constructed via networking sharing, which both musicians describe as a liberating experience for the development of their ideas. Pieces individually and by sequencing balance rhythmic ideas with cathartic and ruminating environmental passages, more of the music in the latter category. There are compelling rhythmic and trancey passages, as in "Warm and Fuzzy", but more often there's simply a sense that you're listening to anything IDM-like, as beats are quickly subverted into what clearly these two like best: quirky, swaggering music with an odd sense of humor and a profound appreciation of sonic quality. "God is So Good, God is So Dub" well illustrates that, for the piece builds on five minutes of a swelling resonant sound with a vocal backbone that only barely shows it's voice, followed by a strange machine pulse that slowly takes on an alien melodic snip over a staggered beat, and finally, with a minute to go, a fractured dub is introduced and quickly dissolves.
"Kurt Said to Me" is a good example of the diversity of each track. The piece starts with a heavily smudged samples of voice and classical music fragments. This suddenly switches to a very deliberate drum and bass rhythm, which continues for less than a minute, then gets stuck, shuts off, and returns in a manner more like a car motor that can't get started, eventually transmuting into a Throbbing Gristle worthy beat over fuzzed guitars, which then dissipates into an arhythmic cymbal solo with suspended recurring voice over a shifting bed of drones and unusual sounds. Throughout the album things either stay in place for an extended time in elated environments of sound or rhythm, or absolutely refuse to stay in place, amidst elated moments and strange transitions, an odd but persuasive equilibrium.
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