Articles
Slow Six
Label Profile: Fällt
Alexander Turnquist

Albums
4 Bonjour's Parties
AGF
Atlas Sound
Autistic Daughters
Baja
Evan Bartholomew
Sylvain Chauveau
Destroyalldreamers
DoF
Dot Tape Dot
Fessenden
Floriana vs. Màcro
Florian Hecker
I Am A Vowel
Jaermulk Manhattan
Steve Jansen
LabField
Liar's Rosebush
Eliot Lipp
Luminous
Mojib
Monocle
Nicolay & Kay
Panda Riot
Ghislain Poirier
Prosumer & Murat Tepeli
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Sambassadeur
Starting Teeth
Carl Stone
Strings of Consciousness
Suite Crude Revue
Text Adventure
Alexander Turnquist
Valet
Viirus
Willits + Sakamoto
Yaporigami

Compilations/Mixes
Armin Van Buuren
Caroline
Goodbye Said the Rain
Sieben Mal Solo
A Weevil in a Biscuit

3"/ 7"/ 10"/ 12"/ EPs
0>1
A Setting Sun
The Bug ft. Warrior Queen
Myungho Choi
Deadbeat
Entsounds
Itosha
JDSY
l'Objet
Noah Pred
Repair
The Retail Sectors
Socks & Sandals
Someone Else
Trembling Blue Stars
.xtrak

Fessenden: v1.1
Other Electricities

v1.1 documents the first release of studio-recorded material by Fessenden, the Chicago/New York-based electro-acoustic trio comprised by Joshua Convey (bass, electronics), Stephen Fiehn (guitar, electronics), and Steven Hess (drums, percussion, vibes, electronics). In operation since 2004, Fessenden traffics in a restrained and atmospheric type of densely textured dronescaping that generally eschews dissonance and ear-splitting dynamic extremes. Even flow doesn't mean uneventful, however, and there's ample activity in the album's five pieces, especially “Mid-Swing” which escalates to a churning, guitar-laced broil over the course of its ten-minute duration, and “Peak V/Z*sin,” which combusts into a volcanic churn after a two-minute intro of near-silence.

Opener “Not Sleeping, Just Resting” sets the tone with a lulling drone dense with industrial clatter and flowing loops. “Diode” seems closer in spirit to an improv jam as its agitated interplay between guitars, bass throbs, and percussion gradually changes to a still rapid but quieter flow of ride cymbals, guitar effects, and bass tones. Dominated by gravelly, distorted thrum, “A Walk in the Park” adheres more to the industrial drone template, though cymbal shadings shift it away somewhat. While neither genre-advancing nor genre-defying, v1.1 remains a more than credible exercise in electro-acoustic dronescaping.

February 2008