touch strings'Touch Strings' is Phill Niblock's fourth release for the Touch label and even considering the vastness of his body of work, this is one of the most comprehensive documents of his extreme approach to reductive composition to have been realized. Sufficient to warrant a double-cd release format, this engrossing album features 3 works focussed on vast harmonic tapestries produced with electric guitars, basses and cellos. As always with Niblock the focus remains on the beating of the interference tones that sprawl across the frequency ranges, recalling works by artists such as Alvin Lucier or the Romanian spectral composers like Radulescu or Dumitrescu. The pieces are far from easy, and to fully appreciate and digest the incomparable stasis of the work, it demands a full and uninterrupted listening mode. For those of you with more challenged attention spans, the 46-minute 'One Large Rose' offers a much denser arrangement yielding a powerfully direct orchestral drone that (excuse the painfully obvious metaphor) ebbs and flows on a tectonic scale. The piece took the Nelly Boyd Ensemble four takes to achieve the final version, further testament to the focussed and intense concentration at work beneath the lethargic, quivering exterior of the sound masses. With the drone scene churning out endless releases of feeble pitched-down orchestral loopage, its something of a master-class to listen to one of the defining works of one of the genres wise old heads. No cheap tricks, no lazy processing, just beautifully recorded, texturally vibrant drones. Genius. -- simon harris.
:: Phill Niblock/Touch Strings - Touch/Cargo
