Conceived as a therapeutic agent for Anomalous label head Eric Lanzillotta as he suffered from a serious lung infection, Lung Cleaneris just the kind of dizzying, confused music I'd specifically avoid ifever visited by a similar illness. If the artist's goal was to create aseries of immersing sound-environments for the bedridden, then he'ssucceeded, only these four tracks are hardly comforting, and with nameslike "Dizzy From the Cold Meds" and "Coughing up the Lung Cleaner,"they seem more appropriate for a healthy person looking to simulate theinfected state. If there is any fluidity to the music it's only becausethere is rarely any silence, each moment tempted by multiple layers ofqueasy sound, never very noisy but always arriving at warped,uncomfortable angles. To his credit, Deutsch does take sound from avariety of inviting sources, including wine glasses, bells, musicboxes, even baby toys, each left well enough intact to make forsurprisingly warm, physical compositions, despite the reliance ondigital technology. Certain sections of the disc, especially theopening "Nice Day, Some Rain" with its cascading violin-like washes andgurgling water percussion, sound as if they could be played by bucolicdrone ensemble Pelt; however, Deutsch practices little of that group'srestraint when applying thick, busy layers of amplified clatter fromhis own unique box of gadgets. The degree to which he is able toorganize so many small, fleeting sounds into dense and coherentclusters, without the digital process stripping them of theirlivelihood, remains an amazing feat throughout, but sadly, this is thelimit of Lung Cleaner's appeal. The compositions seem for themost part aimless, with no progressive intent behind their changes inpalette and texture. And while logical progression might be outside ofthe artist's immediate interests, his creations here are too shambolicand scatterbrained for their created environments to be at allsatisfying. There's no release to the aural nausea induced by thesetracks; even the closing "Sleep Fields (go to sleep)" provides nosolace for the sickly, it's slowly repetitive gurgles and pangingnoises winding up again and again for another anxious heave. That said,it is also rare to find music of similar creation that sounds as"alive" as Lung Cleaner, leading me think that either I couldbe trying harder to hear these quasi-"familiar" sounds in new ways orDeutsch should be more wary of the redundancy created in pushingalready animated source material into a frenzied compositionalstructure. Then again, maybe I just need to get violently ill, pound abottle of Robitussin and have another listen, compare and contrast.Read More
