Articles
Twine
Gregor Samsa
Ben Watt

Albums
Ellen Allien
Arc Lab
Beautiful Schizophonic
Collections of Colonies...
Dday One
Deepchord
Echoes of the Whales
Elika
erikm
Geskia
The Herbaliser
Wayne Horvitz
Sunao Inami
Intrusion
Labelle & Webb
M83
Stephen Mathieu
The Mole
Jon Mueller
Mueller / Kahn
Haruka Nakamura
Alexandre Navarro
Odd Nosdam
James Pants
Poolplayers
Science For Girls
Sintemu
Sparkle in Grey
Syclops
Twine
Wrnlrd

Compilations / Mixes
Birth Certificate
Grand Cru 2008
Impala Eardrums
Little Things
Magnetism, That Electricity
Muting the Noise
Muzyka Voln

EPs
Ateleia / Curtis
Audion
Bristle Weather
Franco Cangelli
Centreless
Collections of Colonies...
Dead Leaf Echo
Fovea Hex
Gulls
Hess / Tilmann
Liles & Fovea Hex
Adam Marshall
Mochipet
Mux Mool
Neptune
Andre Obin
Melissa St. Pierre
Prolyphic / Reanimator
Sceneslow
Skugge & Stavöstrand
Starting Teeth
Agnes Szelag
Tonight
DINTF 4

Sunao Inami: HOW-BOW 2
Electr-ohm

From its curious album title and crude display type design to cryptic track titles like “w-org-e” and “end_w.1+,” HOW-BOW 2 doesn't make the most promising first impression. But get beyond those surface elements and you'll discover a number of engrossing forays into the dark ambient and electro-acoustic drone genres. Inami uses DSP-based sound treatments to heighten the evocative character of his material, making the hydraulic clanking that appears alongside industrial churn in “w-org-e” and “yun1,” for example, as much suggestive of a steel factory in full operation as a torture chamber. Opener “w-org1” eases the listener in gently with a soothing, ten-minute boat ride through Hades (the even more tranquil “end_w.1+” eases one out in much the same way at disc's end), after which “ztoch” suggests the atmospheric rumble of phantom noises rising from the still-smoldering ruins of a bombed-out city. “canyon1” and “end-1” show Inami's considerable talent for sculpting ghostly drones of suitably cyclonic character. HOW-BOW 2 is a fine enough collection of its type but the biggest knock against the album is, predictably, length: seventy-four minutes ends up feelong overlong, especially when certain pieces—the eight-minute aqueous excursion “oct5” and nine-minute driftscape “damiana3” to name two—are twice the duration they need to be.

June 2008