I have to admit I do not get this SUPERPANG release.
It sounds like a sample of a type writer or a closed high-hat cymbal which has been sped up or slowed down and then repeated a number of times at that speed. Then these series of samples are sequenced against other similar sequences which have been altered to different speeds.
The blocks of samples are sequenced relatively sparingly across the audio field and the apparent volume levels are left fairly low overall.
When I first put it on, I wasn’t sure if it was on at all, or if my car was making a new and surprising, but not particularly concerning, ticking sound.
Interesting techniques, but to me, the overall effect is of walking into a room full of very competent and very busy typists.
“Composed through experimental scheduling algorithms that explore the duality of immediate, direct events with gradual and evolving processes.”
While not quite as academic an exercise as, “Data sonification of the SARS-CoV-2 genome sequence,” that does sound a bit dry. Fortunately, the sounds generated by the exercise are not so dry as the theory.
One thing I like about Volume & Void is that the progression of the pieces, while not musical in the traditional sense most of the time, do have a natural feel. Like sitting on your porch listening to a thunder storm. There is no “Theme and Variation” or “Call and Response”, but certain sounds have repetitive characteristics that evolve or change as the pieces progress.
Some parts of pieces might sound like a close mic on an insect chewing a leaf. Others a the sound effect from a b-movie of a hovering UFO. Others a needle scraping across a vinyl album. Or even tap dancing shoes. But certainly none of the more typical sound sample or rhythmic hallmarks associated with more commercial electronic music. Some nice speaker stretching low end booms, though.
There is a lot of variety in sounds and an active use of the sound/mixing/space/mind stage to blend or transform the various sounds dramatically. Quiet to Loud, Loud to Quiet.
The album is always progressing and always interesting, and, like a thunderstorm, you never quite know what will happen next.
It is also a very different experience to listen to loudly in the car and on headphones, in ways I can’t quite quantify.
As the name of the album implies, a lot of the album’s “musicality” and “listenability” comes from the tension between the “volume” levels of the sounds used in contrast to each other and the tension between the sounds and the “void” between the sounds.
“Stash System and sounds created during the summer of 2020 in Scheveningen, The Hague.”
Another recording I have gotten stuck on for a while, however, given the name of the artist, I set a deadline of March 14th to write it up.
Sound Sources: There are things that sound like pressurized gas escaping from a pipes or orifices flowing across a close mic. There are also things that sound slightly like toy organ drones. There are purely electronic squiggles.
Any of these are often manipulated or hacked with processing/editing or panned across the sound field.
There really isn’t much here that approaches the traditional melodic, harmonic, or rhythmic content associated with Western Musical traditions, even Electronic Dance Music or Drone. Rather, these compositions are closer to the spirit of Musique concrète, despite the fact that the sound sources seem to be produced rather than recorded.
Or closer to the way sounds sounds are repetitive without being melodic in nature or manufacturing/technology.
There is variety of volume and types sounds/processing used across the different pieces.
Though, I wouldn’t say there are aspects of drama or tension.
Or, if there is tension, it is more a curiousity about what will happen next than any sort of tension/release. And, then surprise about what does suddenly happen in the course of any given piece.
On the bandcamp page, it says “Japan”, which might indicate the artist lives in Japan or is Japanese. All of the artist’s albums are named with letters from the Greek alphabet, this one is “μ” or lowercase “mu”, the 12th letter of the Greek alphabet. All the albums on their bandcamp page were released between Spring of 2020 and Fall of 2022.
The song titles are fairly cryptic, ranging from long series of numbers to characters to random letters to single words.
I’ve been listening to it, off and on, in the car for a month or so and even though it isn’t that long, in total, it is never boring.
“All objects by 3.14. Mastered by Roc Jiménez de Cisneros”
