Detritus: Thresholds
Ad Noiseam

David Dando-Moore's latest Detritus material isn't a full-length follow-up to last year's Origin but an EP waystation leading on to and perhaps anticipating, in its more aggressive marriage of romantic string and piano melodies with combustible beat patterns, the style of the next album. There's little left to chance in his meticulously assembled and intricately woven music, as the composer pushes granite blocks of sound down new pathways every few bars or so. Serenaded by a warbling violin figure, “Day One” rumbles forth with steamrolling clatter augmented by a distant choir. Here and elsewhere, the mood is both epic and ominous, the music a mix of slamming beat crunch (with faint echoes of drum & bass) and orchestral dramatics. In “U(s),” skipping snares and string masses quickly swell before dropping out to let a somber piano melody resound before kicking back in again, while Edith Piaf shadows the slippery dance breaks and cascading melodies of “Melting Snow.” Thresholds amounts to a dynamic, tightly coiled 20-minute teaser for Detritus's next chapter.

November 2006