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

Stephen Mathieu: Radioland
Die Schachtel

Stephan Mathieu's Radioland, his fifth full-length and follow-up to 2004's The Sad Mac, retains the earmarks of his previous work even if the mode of production is dramatically different. The seven pieces are long-form shimmering drones of crystalline character that, true to genre form, exert an hypnotic pull, especially when the vast swells of glassy tones ebb and flow so lullingly. What's unique about the project is that Mathieu produced the material using real-time processed shortwave radio signals that he recorded and transformed during 2005 and 2006. Selecting parts of high quality from a pool of about fifty gigabytes of processed material (much of it created by custom-designed auto-generative software), he resisted doing anything more than fading the selected parts in and out in order to preserve the purity of the original material. What one hears, then, are random radio streams that were sent through long delay lines and then blended into iridescent drones; put more poetically, Radioland is Mathieu's “portrait of the vast, invisible bubble of information around us.”

“Raphael,” “Gabriel,” “Michael,” and “Promenade” are largely ethereal and abstract in character, with the swirling masses of high-pitched tonal oscillations suggestive of the mutating hum bleeding off of electrical wires. “Auf der Gasse,” by comparison, feels rather more earth-bound due to a simmering sound that resembles crickets softly chirping in unison, while the gravelly, indecipherable rumble of voices can be detected within the beatific flow of “Licht und Finsternis zum Auge.” Voices also appear in “Prolog im Himmel” but this time they're angelic murmurs that lend a pronounced celestial character to the album. What's ultimately most striking about Radioland is the degree to which its vast networks of radio streams blend so consonantly into harmoniously streaming wholes; in short, Mathieu's masterful handling of the resultant wholes makes them sound anything but "random." No commentary on the release would be complete without some mention of its presentation, with the disc's near-fluorescent lime base and semi-transparent layers of yellow-orange, red-violet, and teal land forms making a striking impression.

June 2008