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FRANCISCO LOPEZ & ZBIGNIEW KARKOWSKI, "WHINT"
It comes to you in a plain plastic jewel case. Then again maybe itdoesn't, as there are only 954 of these double CD's from Lopez'floating label, Absolute. This release, facilitated by London basedlabel Touch, brings together one long piece from each composer,constructed with only white noise as a source material. Karkowski'smassive rumbling slow motion hurricane force white disc is the moreimmediately impressive of the two. With only white noise to manipulate,the soundfield is perhaps rather monochramatic, but there is no lack ofaction and the brightness and contrast controls are spun to theirextremes. It starts out deceptively quietly and rises to a floorshaking crescendo before abruptly cutting off. Slowly high sonicswooshes pan from speaker to speaker. It continues with variations onthese effects, and the dominant elements are a fairly constant deepbass drone and ever shifting mid to high end controlled bursts ofnoise. About halfway through it rises to obliterating whiteout, beforethe hurricane shifts to the calm eye for a while, with just a low pulseshadow left. Then slowly the whirlwind picks up again. Experience allthe fun of an avalanche from the comfort of your armchair!On the black disc, Francisco Lopez latterly takes things to minimalextremes with such low level white noise splinters and burnt out coldsilhouette drones they're almost beyond perception. It starts out witha low level rumble like a busy motorway polluting the air in thedistance. Suddenly the cars are driving right under the floorboards andsmoke comes rising through the cracks! Soon the room is choking. Lopezseems more content to let the same pitches drone away for much longerthan on the comparatively teeming Karkowski piece, minutely dabbingmore and more black into the sound picture. Your mum's vacuum cleanernever sounded so good! Around twelve minutes in there's an abrupt cutoff and the listener is dropped into Lopez' realm of microscopic soundshadows that redefine the word 'ambient' (could it be 'nonbient'?) andhave the ears straining as babies howl, birds twitter and motors rumbleoutside. Six minutes later, gas leak hisses begin and careless matchesare struck and blowtorches scorch the walls, then march rhythmicallyout the door and into the city, razing everything in their path. Theyfiddled with computers whilst the world burnt.
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