More thoughts on moving into a new house...
Didn't really get any of the Basic Channel releases first time around (bought some, but never found the right time to listen to them). They seemed like there was nowhere near enough going on, they missed the beats of my brain, caused too little synapse-snapping... but in an old and almost empty house, shorn of the inverted snobbery and pretensions and FACT-ish grandeur that lined up the Basic Channel operation against the waytoomuch humanity of the other, non-minimalist labels I found something quite deliberate and spooky about these, a flutter at the edge of consciousness...
I didn't realise there was anything playing for a little while, thought my computer had died and then, integrated with clockticks and staircreaks and the soft scuffing of cardboard boxes dragged across the floor, a resonance started to creep through the house, playing against the ecological sounds, eating them, forming new patterns. Things I'd found uneccessarily metallic tasting now seemed decidely amorphous, like they needed their own space to really set things into motion.
More importantly, they need other sounds to mingle with, the reverse of everything I've read about the label, with most reviewers suggesting they become meaningless without full attention or autistic listening skills. The music is skeletal but that's because it needs something to wrap around it, a skin of extra colour, a few new splashes...
I might not listen again, anytime soon - certainly makes no sense at all to listen with someone - but I'm glad these little pieces have found their place...
