Had the promise of the first track on this record carried through, I'd be ranting and raving about an extraordinary work of sound manipulation and minimal composition right now. Unfortunately the first track does feel like a standout on this Shimmer and puts the remaining seven songs to shame. Jasch has a great ear that allows him to do more than just slap sounds together in a creative way; he gets into sounds and recognizes their beginning and end and chooses, from the perspective, how to organize a piece of music. The result is a broad spectrum of stuttering sounds, whining strings, deep bass growls, and static rushes that never quite leave the world of organization and dive into the realm of the subconscious world.Doc
Despite this aptitude towards organization, Jasch's pieces are sometimes a bit too simple or they sound too busy. The sounds all fit together well, but no matter how harmonious they are, too much of a good thing can be ruinous. "Morphogeneis" is that opening piece that had me thinking this record was going to be absolutely stunning. It's a twelve minute extravaganza of boiling noise, winding chainsaws, and ominous moans blurring the line between the forest and the trees. Strange machines float overhead with their anonymous engines and some kind of hospital machine beeps slowly in a hidden place nearby. The precision of the composition (the way it ebbs and flows, the way the tension builds and receeds) crafts a kind of noble stability out of broken and shattered parts. It's a twelve minute stasis full of haunted ideas and unsure footing. "Shimmer" follows in a similar fashion but somehow feels repetitive, as though it were a remix of the first track with a small group of new sounds added for good measure. The album slowly fades away as the structure of Jasch's songs reach a kind of predictability. There's always a "solo instrument" wandering about in front of the noises that compose the background. There's always some hint of a musical instrument at work and it usually pulses or flows with a distinct rhythm or timing. If I were less picky, these facts would be minor distractions, but I dislike knowing where sound collage is going to go and I really wanted this record to move someplace it just wasn't moving. There's a ton of potential in Jasch's work and I'd love to see something a little less predictable come my way. If he's going to insist on that heavy, pulsing, repetitive sound, then he needs to do more with it and learn how to compose a piece that increases its heaviness as it unfolds. If he's intent on doing something more subconscious and wants to throw the listener off, he needs to do more than add strange, disco-esque sounds into the middle of an extremely moody piece (see the otherwise excellent "Levity's Rainbow"). Establishing a kind of aura that is working through a constant change of sound is one thing, changing the sound so drastically that it makes me forget how great the past six minutes were is another. There's a lot good going on here, but I find these small points sticking to me and forcing me to acknowledge this as a spotty album with both very excellent and only mediocre moments. 
Read More
