VA: :pensive platforms
Sonic Arcana

Don't let Sonic Arcana's desire to 'explore the outer realms of cerebral electronics' intimidate you. Yes, the twelve explorations comprising :pensive platforms are experimental, atmospheric, and electronic but they're also thoroughly accessible. Compiled by Areti Deligiannis, the album constitutes a wide-ranging sojourn that's at times meditatively ambient (the vinyl-seeped string textures of Geographique's “Myrtille”) and at other times portentous, even menacing (the torturous shudders of David Toop's foreboding “Black Chamber” and Calla's unsettling, dub-inflected “Slum Creeper,” a dirge strangled by shredded guitar scrapes); the absence of breaks between songs enhances its travelogue feel.

Beats are seldom hard, the exceptions being “The Passage,” which showcases a more animated side of Mark Nelson's Pan American sound without sacrificing its somnambulant character, and an untitled collaboration between Fibla and Stol that takes an understated march for a glitchy stroll. While “02.15.02,” a setting of meditative piano minimalism by Taylor Deupree and Kenneth Kirschner, sounds like the kind of thing one might expect from this compilation, other pieces deviate from the template, such as the bell-laden drone “Trance #2” by The Velvet Underground's first drummer Angus Maclise; surprisingly, it hardly sounds out of place, despite having been created in the mid-‘60s. And while Luke Sutherland's soft vocal is rather anomalous for this atmospheric context, the warm Rhodes shimmer of Music A.M.'s gentle “Dynamite” nevertheless sounds appealing. Yoshihiro Hanno's fifteen-minute hymnal meditation “Platform Variation II” brings the collection to a peaceful orchestral close.

While the quality of the material is without dispute, it is somewhat disappointing that all of the material has been issued previously on either Sub Rosa or Quatermass, rendering :pensive platforms entirely irrelevant to the listener already possessing many of the original recordings. And, though most of the material is relatively recent, Scanner's “Airfoil” (1993), though a compelling example of his 'surveillance' style, isn't terribly representative of his current work. The listener new to Sub Rosa and Quatermass, however, will discover a primer of sorts for experimental and atmospheric electronica plus exposure to a diverse range of esteemed contributors to the field.

August 2005