The title translates as 'The Edge of Noise' which is very appropriateas this New Zealand based electroacoustic composer takes the everydaysounds of swings, rainfall and breath through magnified journeys andthorough transformations. The inherent noise in all these sounds ishoned and clarified to its limit and then stretched and pulled into newelastic shapes, but there's always a compositional rigour and exactnessthat keeps this far from chaotic onslaught."Pythagoras's Curtain" starts with what sounds like chalk on ablackboard colliding with door knocks. Lots of creaking, low squeakingand rustling follow, panning from speaker to speaker. The sounds aredeployed with precision and meticulous attention to stereo picturedetail. Sudden drones burst out and rupture against nature. The titlerefers to the way in which Pythagoras would lecture from behind acurtain and draws a parallel to the way in which acousmatic musicrequires deep attentive listening divorced from other senses. Similarbrutal yet focused transformations occur in the other pieces. "Inner"takes sharp intakes of breath and overly dramatic exhalations on anasthmatic nightmare trip which opens up gaping windswept canyons fromthe human lung before collapsing it into wheezing asphyxia andabstracted whirling vortices. There's a very claustophobic feel to muchof this breathscape. "Virtual" takes recordings of wind through asimilar if predictably more violent ride, but the feeling here is ofopen vastness. The squeaking swing that "Time, Motion and Memory"hinges on instantly recalls Pierre Henry's 'Variations Pour Une Porteet Un Soupir' but takes on forms far beyond the capacity of old tapesplicing, as Young reimagines the swing as a giant pendulum cuttingback and forth through other environmental sounds. There's a thick fogof nostalgic childhood memory gathering for the most moving andhaunting track here. It's soon washed away by the rain falling from the"Liquid Sky," in crisp drenched drain swilling eddies. This is perhapsthe most varied and violent track by default as the different surfacesthat rain hits flood wide sonic spectra. Through academic studioalchemy enabled by Empreintes Digitales, John Young makes explicit thedrama and strangeness of everyday sounds, and draws deep shadows in thespaces between them. -
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