"Over the last 12 months Lee Bannon’s transition into Dedekind Cut has yielded some of the most curious, immersive electronic music from the USA. His transformation now appears to be complete with the strikingly spacious and absorbing ambient sound designs of $uccessor, the NYC-based artist’s debut album in this guise.
It feels as though Bannon's previous releases, American Zen for Hospital Productions, and the scything torque of R&D with Rabit, were cleverly planned stepping stones into this brave new world, where he establishes a dream-like topography of diaphanous ambient pads pitted with the shrapnel of grime and trap, ultimately revealing a simulated, otherworldly environment deeply personal to the artist.
His amalgamation of layered ambient dimensions with haunting harmonic figures nods to early ‘90s AI and electronica from FSOL to Coil via the antecedent spheres of modern sci-fi and computer game soundtracks, whilst also existing in a history of North American computer music and noise that connects to the spirits of Prurient and Carl Stone.
We’re parachuted in like an avatar in "No Mans Sky" to the lush levels of "Descend From Now," streaking across the iced out sino-eski zones of "Instinct" to the heart-rending eight minutes of "Conversations with Angels" and the perpetually elusive rhythms of "Fear In Reverse," before the hyaline harmonies of "☯" makes his most faithful, explicit nod to Coil, and "Integra" reaches to more optimistic New Age planes before culminating in the aching chamber figure, "46:18."
It's telling that the album is brought to you via two highly individual labels such as Non and Hospital Productions - this meeting of worlds provides a context for the music itself, making for an album that we'd recommend as much to those of you who have enjoyed recent outings by Chino Amobi, Rabit or Arca, as much as followers of Prurient or, indeed, Dominick Fernow's Rainforest Spiritual Enslavement project."
-via Boomkat
Read More
