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Sleep Research Facility, "Stealth"
Kevin Doherty has long been one of the most quietly compelling artists working in the dark ambient field due to his unusual (and oft-alienating) themes and his inventive artistic purity in realizing them.  This release, which was commissioned by Cold Spring, is constructed entirely from recordings made during the maintenance of a B-2 Stealth Bomber.  While not as objectively impressive as wringing two full albums out of a three-minute recording of a broken heater (Dead Weather Machine) or as musical as his homage to the doomed spaceship in Alien (Nostromo), Stealth is fascinating in its own right and makes a worthy addition to a unique body of work.
This is a rather challenging album for reasons that are not entirely intuitive or immediately obvious, but the bonus disk of "pre-mix" recordings is very effective in illustrating most of them.  The "original, unedited" sounds actually seem to be significantly processed, cleaned-up, and EQed, but that makes sense, given that Doherty is presenting them as a separate full-length album.  However, they are unmanipulated in the sense that they are not cut-up, composed, layered, or restructured.  More importantly, they already sound pretty great–it is easy to understand why this was commissioned.This turns out to be something of blessing and a curse though, as there is not much need for added artistry when the bomber itself is already providing a host of ominous hums, eerie crackles, lonely beeps, and garbled voice transmissions before Kevin even gets involved (though there is obviously some artistry involved in choosing which sounds to record and focus on).
Another issue stems from Doherty's thematically pure approach to his compositions.  He believes that there are limitless possibilities in manipulating existing recordings, so he doesn't add any instrumentation here.  In an abstract way, he is correct.  In the context of this album, however, the possibilities seem pretty damn limited, given Kevin's decision to leave everything in a relatively recognizable state.  Stealth is essentially an hour of endless rumble, hum, and buzz texturized by chattering electronic noises and static-heavy radio communications.  There isn't much of an long-term arc or sense of dynamic variation, which puts me in the absurd position of being frustrated that ambient music is too ambient: maintaining an unbroken, immersive mood free of jarring sounds or crescendos is essentially Doherty's very raison d'etre.  Unfortunately, there are already many, many albums of bleak rumbling out there, so I was hoping for more of a distinctive variation on that formula than some added radio transmissions (even though they are undeniably a nice touch).  I understand that a lot of Stealth's appeal is conceptual and process-based, but that does not entirely erase my expectations for how it should actually sound–I wanted "great" and I got "pretty good."
Another curious aspect of this album is that Kevin seems to have fully internalized the essence of Stealth bombers and attempted to replicate it within the album: Stealth is a very elusive, mysterious, and subtly unsettling batch of songs.  Nothing overt ever happens, but the simmering dread never, ever resolves.  The only exception is "Stealth3," in which the radio transmissions sound noticeably panicked and the accompanying whines become pronounced enough to seem somewhat menacing.  Aside from just sounding unnerving, it packs the added punch of making me wonder why a plane sitting in a hangar in England would be getting besieged with (garbled) transmissions that sound like pleas for help.  Moments like that show that Stealth can be a very rewarding listen if I meet it halfway with appropriate attention and focus, but it is much more of an unqualified success artistically than it is as a listening experience.  However, even though I find Doherty's earlier albums a bit more compelling at the moment, I have a nagging suspicion that that may someday change if I devote enough time to Stealth's sublime hums to fully unveil their secrets and nuances.
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