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

Sybarite: Cut Out Shape
Temporary Residence

Maybe every recording artist should follow Sybarite's lead and only issue a new album every four years or so, especially if the outcome is as carefully-crafted and focused as Cut Out Shap. That's how long it took Xian Hawkins to get his latest full-length in order but it wasn't because he was lazing idly by; instead, after his 4AD debut Nonument, he found himself fielding so many offers for film and television projects he could only manage a remix or compilation appearance here and there while tending to his other obligations. (Cut Out Shape also reunites Hawkins with Temporary Residence which issued musicforafilm and Placement Issues discs before Nonument .)

The foreboding title song immediately establishes the album's sophisticated character, with Sybarite carefully intertwining a slinking piano line with clanging punctuations and a funky shuffle. The best thing about it is that, even when the song modulates through quiet and loud passages, Hawkins calibrates the song's density perfectly by neither adding too much or too little. It doesn't hurt that friends like Galia Durant help out either, with the Psapp singer adding her evocative voice to the psychedelic samba “Runaway” (interestingly, the song more resembles a Dani Siciliano track than a Psapp song). At times Hawkins' music gravitates towards a specific genre (the noisy “Memory End” offers a shredded serving of guitar-drenched shoegaze while one could file “Dot the Lines” under orchestral post-rock); at other times, it conflates styles (the uptempo mix of six-string roar and country swing in “Kill the Moonshine”) or sidesteps categorization altogether, the propulsive haze of saxes, acoustic guitars, and vocal wheeze stoked in “Sanctuary” (previously issued on Idol Tryouts Two: Ghostly International Vol. Two) a case in point. A string-kissed hidden track “Knot in the Wheel” takes the album out on a cool and elegant note, much like the rest of Hawkins' polished album.

November 2006