Keith Fullerton Whitman/Alien Radio (Rhizomatic Review Remixxx)

This is a remix of the review over at Freq.

This is a work in progress about a work of progress. A split album in all senses.

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Split seams... or spilt seems

Side A is Debussy’s La Mer played on sawtoothed (maybe snaggletoothed) electronics.

(((arpeggios that didn't follow the usual waves of the sea, that didn't submit to the ravages of what others thought the sea must sound like, but instead turned a conch into an amplifier and heard the sea anew)))

Keith Fullerton Whitman’s latest Buchla synth missive, “101105,” comes with health warnings embedded; a strobe in sound rather than light, sending the audience (this was recorded live) into dead spasms.

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There’s rumours that a good few of the audience were high on LSD when he played this out. Let’s hope not, eh?

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It’s not as… breezy as some of Keith’s recent works, not as obviously de-tangling (insert here quote about Deleuze and Guattari’s rhizomatic structures, strangling the life out of the roots from tree of knowledge) and instead reminds me in form of Faust’s “Krautrock” opener from Faust IV, if less smooth than that suggests and less solipsistic.

((((Actually listening for a third time this isn't true; apologies to Freq readers but it really doesn't sound like that at all; whatever resemblance it seemed to have this morning, seem gone now... I don't know what I was thinking...I'm a twat)))

It’s (still) a symphonic roar of a track (though) which gets to crescendo early on and doesn’t really give up until the end. Despite being built from edits, it’s propulsive and you’ll never hear the joins; you can just about imagine Keith holding on to this track like it’s an aircraft engine, hoping to hell he doesn’t slip on one loose wire and get thrown off.

One loose sinewave, one loose electron... Keith Fullerton Whitman is getting more scientific in his (not very) old age... this is music that sounds like it was made in a laboratory, or rather a garage that's been turned into a laboratory, like those guys in Primer... it's akin to people trying to make Owsley Acid; only to find that occasionally the air turns sulphuric...

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Alien Radio responds to this long, dense frightener with shorter, smaller tracks. Ping pong bleats, electronic White Noise* gulps (gulps seem everywhere at the moment in electronic music; everyone’s finding things difficult to swallow it seems**) that shift ever so slightly in and out of focus (this could be my ears) and then slope off behind the sheds for a robot smoke. He seems a little intimidated, anthropomorphically spinning into a sort of jester role to Keith Fullerton Whitman’s angry Bear King.

(((Listen closely, you'll hear them skipping around, these multi-jesters. you'll hear them sniping at each other with little electronic twizzles; skipping in the light, where Coil*** jesters skipped around in the half-light, pulling on the light cord...)))

They are pleasant and mildly diverting with all the plusses and minuses that come from that shallow-arsed phrase, sounding not unlike the collaboration between Aphex Twin and Mike Paradinas (as Mike and Rich) on Expert Knob Twiddlers. You’ll like both sides, I think but I reckon you’ll return to Keith’s side more often, if just to check that he’s still clinging on.



*I'm sorry, these guys seem to get a mention every fucking review. Lazy, stuffed turkey/tourniquet joinerism, almost Hari in it's effortless smudge...

** I'm assuming this is the gulps of (De)Cameron et al, future-recorded, watching each other auto-fellate while Rome burns. I'm assuming Chris Watson has plied himself from the soft burrs of The One Show and sent himself hurtling into the near-future, armed only with throat-mics...

***yeah, again; fucking sue me... actually I mention Owsley acid in that post too... this blog is eating itself; every post is a remix of every other post...