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Keith Fullerton Whitman, "21:30 for acoustic guitar"
Generally speaking, a great organic musician has the potential to be agreat electronic musician. This is exactly what I think of whenlistening to music from Mr. Keith Fullerton Whitman, somebody mostpeople know from writings, remixes, compilation appearances and onealbum as Hrvatski. The second release from Lucky Kitchen side-labelApartment B is a 21+ minute CD from Whitman recorded a few years ago(yeah, it's actually listed as Keith Fullerton Whitman but I figuredwho'd read the review if they didn't know he was Hrvatski?). This discis the essence of what somebody can do with minimalism. Each 10+ minutetrack makes the most incredible usage of one source - acoustic guitar,processed in real-time through 4-track and other unlikely gear. I can'tfully explain everything used without quoting the entire cover, but Ican say with 100% confidence that Whitman has a lot to teach theEuropean and Japanese laptop clickers about composition, form andstructure. The first track starts off with a simple, searing,high-pitched melody, other octaves get added in, first lower then muchlower, then much much higher, yet remaining simple, subtle andcaptivating. More and more replicas are added to the blissfulprogression, resulting in a stellar cosmic mix. Track two is anotherten minute piece in which Whitman exploits tones and relative tonesmeshing with each other, this time most likely toying with guitarharmonics (if he is indeed using the guitar again). After the half-waymark, the overlapping tones are greeted with more energetic, melodic,shimmering, glistening notes, building up into an aural bird sanctuary,then quelling down with newer droning tones. Wow. Perhaps I'veexplained this all wrong, but boy does it sound tasty.
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