Philip Jeck always seems to surprise and surpass expectation every timeI hear him perform. I've heard him spin out haunting loops for avantgarde dancers to strut about to in art spaces. I've heard him spinstickered platters alongside guitarist Vergil Sharkya and fractalvideographer Gerd Willschvetz in an underground car park in Liverpool.I've heard his scaffolded ranks of old car boot turntables mash upcrackly memory traces from worn needles bumping into wires and stickersin a London gallery. I've heard him go walkabout at a festival opening,cutting up dictaphone recordings with the pause button. After hisambitious quartet of lengthily (r)evolving 'Vinyl Codas' released bythe Intermedium label, he returns to Touch with seven shorter liveexcerpts from performances in Liverpool, Manchester, Osaka, Tokyo andVienna. With only a single sample Casio keyboard to aid the junkyardturntables spinning varispeed deteriorating vinyl, he necessarilylimits his options but unlocks endless potentials from abundantalternate histories coded in the grooves. When he loops records at lowspeed, worn old cliches morph into haunting new textures. A phantasmalkeyboard hoot that forms the bedrock of "Pax" sounds like it might'vemorphed slowly from a cheesy old J. Geils Band charity shop hit."Above" cuts scratchy old vinyl into train chug clunks and chickensquawk with some slowed speech narration to explain what exactly isn'tgoing on. "Lambing" is a home recording, soundtracking a film by LucyBaldwyn, and wouldn't sound out of place on his previous Touch CD'Surf,' with groaning ghost vox repeating an eerie refrain over thecrackle'n'drone spin, until slowly a sunrise glow cracks dawn beneaththe locked groove rhythm faultlines. "Vienna Faults" waltz around likea music box in a tumble dryer. There's some crazily mangled sitar"Below," reversing into hollow metal hammering, cut dead by a suddendescending blues guitar riff. "Open" seems to rework familiar noisesfrom 'Surf' into a noisier delayed clatter. "Close" does just that,with some more sitar loops, more meditative but just as playful asbefore. Stray starry plucked fragments drop in at odd angles until aloop locks and deteriorates to a stutter as a single piano note bashesto infinity. A ghost choir of Hamaiian folk singers emerges from thevinyl crackle fog to bid a fond farewell. If you haven't heard PhilipJeck before, this is not his most immediate recording and 'Surf' or the'Vinyl Coda' series might be better ports of entry. He has not yet leftthe building.
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