This is the sound of brain stimulation flash storms which play out like the dreams of anaesthetised car crash victims. The floats of electronically altered high violin movements are spread a mile thick over glaring beams of individually picked notes.
This kind of burnt out overloaded minimalism is noisily virginesque and uses the obscurity of excessive sonic cover to shy away from straight up splendor. The closer or louder the listen, the clearer the day below the cloud cover becomes. Like the incidental themes of those ignored by their creator, this is a beautifully lost piece of music that gives of hints of a yawning ache. The fine edges of ever moving loops and percussive splinters give glimpses of what’s buried beneath, but they’re transitory.
The flipside’s subtler build reveals things more clearly through its leisurely pace. “Illiaster” exposes what could be flourishes of harp and electric bouts of fuzzy sound inside a swoon. An intrusive buzz that appears could have ended up being unsettling, but instead it’s like a little sliver of reality towards songs end. Axolotl obligingly provides his own gentle re-entry orbit. Although complete as standalone songs, both sides feel like they’ve been cut from a larger work. It’s hard to take in the scale, or more accurately the sheer depth of the sound, of both the title track and “Illiaster”. This Axolotl (aka Karl Bauer) 12" sounds like it was born to be a long player.
(no samples available: vinyl only)
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