ARTICLES
Ten Questions: Fat Jon
MUTEK 2006

ALBUMS
65daysofstatic
A Cloud Mireya
Ambarchi and Ng
Another Elec. Musician
Derek Bailey
Band Ane
Barzin
Black Gold 360
The Blow
Boduf Songs
Childs
Darc Mind
Dosh
Duopandamix
Fat Jon & Styrofoam
Liam Gillick
Shuta Hasunuma
Tim Hecker
Ilkae
Jack's Son
Richard Jäverling
Jazzkammer
Junior Boys
Last Days
Hanno Leichtmann
Luomo
Mandelbrot Set
Mountaineer
N.Phect & Dizplay
Part Timer
Karsten Pflum
Benoît Pioulard
Plus Device
+/- {Plus/Minus}
Relay
Saroos
Seht
Shedding
So Percussion
Sybarite
Trio Vopá
Marshall Watson
Weather Report
Donato Wharton
Christopher Willits
Xela

COMPILATIONS/MIXES
ESL Remixed
Four Tet
Garnier & Craig
Ginglik Saturdays
Michael Mayer
Henrik Schwarz

3"/7"/10"/12"/EPs
Colleen
Delano and Xpansul
Detritus
Ed Devane
Eskimo
Feathers
Goldmund
Ezekiel Honig/Graphic
Ezekiel Honig
Eliot Lipp
Robert Lippok
Alejandro Lopez
Evan Marc
Porter & Carr
Sebastian Russell
Somone Else
Spaceships & Pings
SplitEP3
Simon Whetham

Seht: The Green Morning
Digitalis Industries

The Green Morning's front cover shows early morning sunlight breaking through the barren trees of a forest while its back depicts a pink-hued image capture of Mars' surface—natural analogues to the release's equally earthbound and ethereal sonic material. The third proper CD release from Drone Minimalist extraordinaire seht (New Zealand-based Stephen Clover) impresses on many counts, not the least of which is Clover's disdain for cheap effects and dramatics.

After the 10-minute gloomscape “Valles Marineris” begins the album strongly with a slowly intensifying and receding industrial churn, “Olympus Mons” initially seems perhaps a bit too uneventful to justify its quarter-hour duration, but Clover remains faithful to the music's spirit and the listener gradually attunes him/herself to its glacial unfurl. The churning “Way in the Middle of the Air” and ambient “Cydonia” offer brief episodes of contemplation before the 20-minute “Chryse Planitia” lifts off. Softly humming like a well-oiled factory machine, the almost imperceptibly mutating setting revisits, if more subtly, the escalating drone concept of “Valles Marineris,” embedding it this time within a mass of entirely different character, a drifting sea of prickly crackle and shimmering tones that intersect and flow into one another.

Clover cites Olivier Messiaen, Terry Riley, Tony Conrad, Faust, Stars of the Lid, and others as influences but, while each might individually shadow Clover's pieces, you'll hear little direct reference to any one of them on The Green Morning. Clover goes his own way, carving out his own carefully delineated path through the droning thickets of his chosen genre.

November 2006