 Magwheels
/ Stone Glass Steel
"Pane" CD
Ad
Noiseam
Genres: industrial, ambient
Ad Noiseam
c/o Nicolas Chevreux
Postfach 55 01 22
D-10371 Berlin
Germany
Mar 22 - 28 2004 |
Pane, the new split album between David Sullivan (Magwheels)
and Phil Easter (Stone Glass Steel), represents the
ambient side of German noise and experimental label Ad Noiseam.
Though Sullivan and Easter frequently use abrasive
textures and abstract atmospheres to create their music, for the most
part this material is remarkably 'soft.' Both artists use lots
of soothing drones and reverb to establish dark, refreshing ambiances
not unlike some of the less recent Fennesz work.
Pane starts off with seven new compositions from Magwheels.
They are, for the most part, a collection of short ambient
clips. Each one has a unique sound, but they come together
perfectly as a whole. "Phantovm" is an amazing
soundscape, whereas "Monolithic Songbird" takes a bit of a
noisy approach to things, coming at the listener with a chugging,
loud, yet still relatively conservative assault of experimental
abstraction. "SSmokes" is also impressive, in its own
pretty, guitar-injected way. The exception to the album's
general formula is "The Only Window Is So High Up," which is
just over eight minutes long but still perfectly engaging and almost
ritualistic. Slight tunefulness is introduced by way of some
jarring guitarwork.
The second half of the disc comes courtesy of Stone Glass Steel,
who brings us two twenty minute compositions using the entire Magwheels
discography as source material. This makes for dense listening
for those unaccustomed to the sound, but any true ambient fanatic will
fall in love with SGS's mind-expanding, powerful atmospheric
compositions.
Pane is definitely a success. As far as ambient music
goes, there's lots of really awful stuff out there - fortunately, this incredible
split release proves that there is still lots left to enjoy on the
scene.
88%
Fun Fact: A "mag wheel" is
any time of auto wheel made from a magnesium alloy.
Matt Shimmer
[Vitals: 61 minutes, 9 tracks, distributed by the
label, released 2003] |
