A sister piece to the recently released Sand, Suite: Live in Liverpool is, on the one hand, a maturation of turntablist Philip Jeck's craft, exploring more thoroughly territory he's canvassed in the past. His music is still its own dense star - a churning, turbulent constellation, out of which individual details sketchily emerge. Presently, however, his persistent themes are being refined and, ultimately, appear to be straining at their boundaries, revealing stronger and yet more subtle differences in style: spacey siren effects pass through ominous reverberant thuds and ephemeral smears of glinting sound, orchestral parts simmer away or cling to clouded textures like a neon halo, and the melancholic, degraded scour of ambience reveals the sanctity of violation and disintegration.
There is in the pieces a greater sense of clarity and a more evolved dynamic among the elements. Within this, a good number of works are able to achieve an edgier musical chemistry, cohering with some cogency while nonetheless swimming in seismological disturbances and other such surprising resonances. No less surprising, riveting kinetic cascades of sound surface in odd places throughout the album, serving as useful counterpoints to the relentless grinding, and thus gesturing toward an array of collusion's and confusions between beauty and industrial force. By locating his works in this ambiguous space, and negotiating this balancing act with seeming ease, Jeck provides the occasion for real joy in the act of listening.
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