AM/PM: Bought and Sold
Dreck

AM/PM: Maratea
Dreck

Radovan Scasascia inaugurates a new twelve-inch series with four tracks split between Bought and Sold and Maratea. As he did with 2004's The Ends, Scasascia uses the final moments of found recordings as a starting point for the tracks' source material—not that one would know otherwise, necessarily. Whether designed for the club or home-listening, the discs' densely textured material is cerebral, sophisticated, and controlled. In disc one's “Bought and Sold,” distant horns surge and scratching accents pan over an insistently swinging tech-house groove while wheezing machine emissions jumpstart layers of rhythmic pitter-patter and skipping patterns in the more meditative “Such is the Ordeal.” Disc two's exquisite “Maratea” pairs a delicate stream of clicks, snaps, and smears and carefully modulated crescendos with a subtly swaying house pulse, after which “Rather Than Less” wends a dreamily downtempo route filled with elongated chords and languorous drum pulses. Scasascia plans to follow these releases with two more before eventually issuing them collectively as a full-length later this year.

April 2007