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Matthew Hale Clark/Ken Camden, "Split Series 4"; Jeremy Lemos/Matt Jencik, "Split Series 5"
The relationships between these four artists makes for a complex family tree on their own, and thus it makes perfect sense that there is a tangible sense of unity between these four sides of vinyl, something split releases often miss. Jeremy Lemos and Matthew Hale Clark play together in White/Light, while Ken Camden and Matt Jencik make up Kranky band Implodes. While each artist contributes very different sound material, they all complement each other quite well.
It is Hale Clark's single, 12 minute piece that is perhaps the most different from the other three."SLC Suite" is a slow build composition starting with pristine silence and sparse acoustic guitar, the rate of playing grows faster and faster, and eventually is paired with some subtle countermelodies and cymbals.It is only in the final two minutes that everything seems to lock into a full band sounding folk arrangement, before coming to its end.
On the flip side, Camden provides two pieces that differ from one another, but are unified in the use of heavily processed guitar sounds that resemble modular synths more than stringed instruments."Moisture" is all about swirling abstract tones and dissonant buzzes, going into a distinctly sci-fi feeling contribution.The following "Algoma Summer" works with the same palette of sounds, but takes a more sweeping, soundtracky approach, even throwing in some almost proggy leads into a complex, varied track.
On volume five, Lemos' work as a sound engineer is on clear display.In comparison to the pieces on the previous volume, "Out with the Old" feels much more like modernist electronic drone.Tense, shrill passages make up the darker, bleaker first half, before slowly being shredded into static swells and digital glitch outbursts, calming back down in the final moments of the 10-minute composition.
Jencik leads off his half with the subtlety titled "Conservative Fucks," a brief piece of cold, dissonant noise and reverberated static.Melodic it is not, but its full coverage of the sonic spectrum, from rumbling lows to shrill highs, make it a powerful track.The longer "Hollow Bodies" sounds like a recording or a sample of a cello played loudly through a filter, mutating the sound just enough to sound unnatural, but not overtly so.Slight increases in volume lead to a clipping type effect that, through restraint, are a compliment more than a detriment to the quieter sounds.The muted sense of sadness leads it all to have a maximialist, blasting feeling of depressive ambient music.
While superficially these four pieces and four artists sound quite different from one another, there is a tangible synergy and mood that unifies them, leading to an unexpected consistency that is usually unheard of for two split 10" releases.Folk, prog synth sounds, and digital drone normally would not work together, but here it somehow does.
samples:
- Matthew Hale Clark - "SLC Suite"
- Ken Camden - "Algoma Summer"
- Jeremy Lemos - "Out with the Old"
- Matt Jencik - "Hollow Bodies"
 
