Articles
Robert Henke
Deepchord and Soultek

Albums
Amoebazoid
Boy Is Fiction
BTB
Calika
Vic Chesnutt
Enrico Coniglio
Eric Copeland
Deadbeat
Deepchord : Echospace
Ditch
Terrence Dixon
Brian Ellis
Reinhold Friedl
The Green Kingdom
Marc Hannaford
Hrsta
K. Leimer
Lights Out Asia
Nebula 3
Netherworld
Le Peuplier de Simon
Po
Portable
Lou Reed
Jeffrey Roden
Skallander
Swod
Gregory Taylor
Telephone Jim Jesus
Pau Torres
Tunng
Rolan Vega
Robert Vincs
Warmth
Otomo Yoshihide

Compilations / Mixes
Sander Kleinenberg
One Point Two
Total 8

3"/ 7"/ 10"/ 12"/ EPs
Adultnapper
Arrow!!!
Ascoltare
Beneva vs. Clark Nova
Cinematic Orchestra
Deepchord : Echospace
Easy Changes
Fink
Peter Grummich
The Heavy
Isomer Transition
Laptik
Larytta
Nadja
Pendle Coven
Polvere
Redhooker
Spied
Andy Stott
Torrance & Hochstrate
Andy Vaz

Gregory Taylor: Amalgam: Aluminum / Hyrdrogen
Palace of Lights

On Amalgam: Aluminum / Hydrogen, an unedited, improvised live performance recorded in Wisconsin, 2006, radiaL virtuoso Gregory Taylor distills synthesis, sampling, processing, and looping into a continuously flowing travelogue. Sonically, the music shines with pristine electronic gleam but, stylistically, its hypnotic, lulling rhythms and meditative episodes classify the music as gamelan in particular (testifying to Taylor 's long-standing love of the form) and non-Western in general. The album opens with the delicate “Bem,” which exudes the innocence and charm of a child's lullaby, followed by “Gulu,” where the buoyant pitter-patter of bright pops suggests dancing tabla patterns, and “Pelog,” which arrests the album's rhythmic flow for a vibrant meditation of glistening bell strikes. Taylor doesn't entirely eschew contemporary electronic music-making of the Line and 12k sort (as the lower-case glitch setting “Nem” and aggressive soundscaping outro “Barang” make clear) but, for the most part, Amalgam: Aluminum / Hydrogen attempts—successfully—an East-West, multi-temporal merger between that sounds wholly natural and convincing. On paper, ‘electronic-gamelan' may not sound like a combination that should work so naturally but, in Taylor's expert hands, it assuredly does; if anything, the ease with which the fusion is realized can lead one to overlook how deftly Taylor effects it. Notable as well is the fact that the material, while sophisticated in design and intricately layered, remains accessible throughout.

September 2007