Nick Forte is half of a duo called Christmas Decorations that releaseda pretty decent album on Kranky last year. For his first soloexcursion, he's come up with a mini-album that crams 15 tracks intojust over half and hour. The record has an excellent starting point in"Green Language," where Forte expertly weaves together a dubbed-outbackdrop, broken-down machine beats and swirling layers of sound andnoise into a really satisfying work that always seems to be on theverge of falling apart. But the good feeling brought on by of thosefirst few moments is quickly deflated, as the one- to two-minute tracksthat make up most of the disc are unexciting little bursts of abstractsound that go nowhere fast. Some promising flashes of structure appearin a couple of places, most notably on "Thistle Rue" and "ForgottenMusic", but generally Pasted Lakes sounds like a collection of unfinished ideas and unfocused sound farts, few of which I find especially appealing.samples:
I did, however, find a lot to enjoy on Chaotech Odd Echo,the first full-length album from Japan's Kiyoshi Ono a.k.a. Kiyo.Reportedly, this disc arrived at the Schematic offices with a note thatread "Enjoy warm noise from Japan," and that phrase that fits the albumquite nicely. The artist's website bio reveals him to be a fan of DavidLynch and Stanley Kubrick, and through his juxtaposition of melodicsketches and fractured beats with layers of subtle rumbles andin-and-out waves of crackling static, he manages to evoke a sense ofunease and edginess in his music that is similar to that found in thosedirector's films. There are a couple moments where things threaten toget a little too flighty and abstract, but Kiyo has a good handle onhow to keep the listener's attention by balancing those non-linearimpulses with warm harmonics and clank-and-crunch rhythms. Read More
