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Pulse Emitter, "Crater Lake"
There are a few reasons why I am so late to the party on Daryl Groetsch's work, but the primary one is that I first heard about him in the early 2000s, when he was appearing on albums with titles like All I Want for Xmas is Bowel Disrupting Noise and Underwater Corpse.  Consequently, his transformation into one the premier purveyors of kosmische-inspired long-form analog synthesizer voyages went entirely unnoticed by me.  Another reason, unfortunately, is that Pulse Emitter has a dangerous tendency to veer into cloyingly saccharine New Age territory, as he sometimes does here.
There is a curious paradox at the heart of Pulse Emitter's recent work, as Groetsch seems to increasingly draw his inspiration from the natural world, yet works exclusively with some of the least natural-sounding instrumentation around.  Crater Lake is a prime example of that phenomenon, as it partially originated when Daryl went camping in Crater Lake National Park while working on a planned album inspired by the moons of Jupiter.  The trip had a profound effect on Groetsch, as his original idea became quickly subsumed by a fascination with the similarities between Crater Lake and those distant moons.
Daryl manages to convey that inspiration fairly successfully on the opening "Europa."  Although it takes its name from Jupiter's ice-covered moon that may famously be hiding a secret ocean, its twinkling and radiant shimmer definitely seems more inspired by the sun coming up over an isolated Oregon lake than anything mysterious, distant, and cold.  Which, unfortunately, brings me to my primary issue with Crater Lake: there is not a hell of a lot of depth, mystery, or emotional complexity apparent in these pieces at all.  Rather, they often feel unambiguously beatific, embracing a gloopy, candy-colored pastoralism that I cannot relate to very much at all.  That is probably my problem, as "Europa" is an objectively a very well-crafted composition, but there is a reason why the adage about the devil having all the good music exists.  Wide-eyed happiness is a tough sell, particularly among us experimental music enthusiasts.
Groetsch does arguably toss me a bone with the brooding, distorted "Io" (inspired by some jagged rock outcroppings at the lake), but he does not exactly play to his strengths (patterns and melodies).  Unfortunately, the following "Enceladus" returns to Pulse Emitter's most gently burbling and bucolic tendencies with a goddamn vengeance that comes close to unlistenability for me.  The closing "Titan" thankfully rights the ship, however, offering up some nicely understated, warm, and meditative swells augmented by a languorously cascading melody, chime-like fluorishes, and a surprisingly active and unpredictable pattern of bass bloops.  It is by far Crater Lake's best piece, so at least Daryl started the album promisingly and ended strong. Shame about the middle though.
The truly exasperating thing about this lukewarm review is that I have heard some Pulse Emitter songs that I have genuinely loved.  There have been quite a few that I have hated as well, but Groetsch is capable of truly wonderful work.  In fact, some of Crater Lake might even be wonderful work, but Daryl's brighter, cheerier side clashes so violently with my personal sensibilities that it is impossible for me to fully appreciate any of it.  Yet another perplexing aspect of Crater Lake is that it is a fairly high profile release for Pulse Emitter, but it is eclipsed by some of his limited edition cassettes.  In any case, I am pleased that this album will likely get Groetsch more exposure than he is used to, though I will probably spend a lot more time sifting through his back catalog than I will revisiting this particular effort (I do want to go to Crater Lake now though–I guess that might count as a triumph of sorts).
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