Article
2014 Artists' Picks

Albums
A Far Cry
Albatrosh
Anawan
Arandel
Azizy
Black Vines
Borghi & Teager
Clarity
Ecovillage
EM62 & Cancino
Flug 8
William Ryan Fritch
Gajek
Frode Haltli
Erik Honoré
Marsen Jules
Inoo-Kallay Duo
Kimyan Law
Machinecode
Man Watching the Stars
Marble Sky
Mini Pops Junior
Møster!
Native
Roach & Reyes
Secret Pyramid
Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith
Spyra
Andy Stott
Ryan Streber
Supersilent
Swarm Intelligence
Terminal Sound System
Erik Truffaz & Murcof
Unto Ashes
Whahay

Reissues
Sylvain Chauveau
Brian Eno

Compilation
Now's The Time 3

EPs / Cassettes / Singles
36
Michael Ashe
Dreamsploitation
Far Out Mon. Disco Orch.
Jacksonville
Neil Leonard
Skeptical
Stag Hare

Terminal Sound System: Dust Songs
Denovali Records

Dust Songs testifies that, even at the twelve-album stage of its existence, Skye Klein's audacious Terminal Sound System project continues to undergo metamorphosis. Last year's A Sun Spinning Backwards (Denovali Records) witnessed the Australian alchemist displacing the Terminal Sound System sound even further from its drum'n'bass-related origins for a polyglot style drawing upon industrial, shoegaze, electronica, post-rock, and dubstep in a way that invited comparison to early Third Eye Foundation releases like Ghost and You Guys Kill Me.

Dust Songs now presents the next stage in Terminal Sound System's evolution. One possible characterization of the project would describe the album as a cross between Third Eye Foundation's seething doom-metal and an acoustic-heavy Pink Floyd (circa Animals and The Wall). The latter component asserts itself in particular in Klein's vocal delivery, which in places (e.g., “Silver Minds”) sounds so much like Roger Waters' that the song in question could be mistaken for an unreleased Pink Floyd demo. Anything but prog or drum'n'bass per se, Dust Songs makes good on its title in featuring a number of cryptic, late-night ballads. Synthesizers and electronics are featured but so too are vocals and acoustic guitars, making for an arresting change-up in the Terminal Sound System sound.

After a minute-long scene-setter of noise textures and acoustic strums (“Deep Black Static”), Dust Songs gets down to business with “By the Meadow,” the first of many dark, mantra-like vocal settings. While not indecipherable, Klein's words are hard to make out when they're shrouded in haze and shadowed by surges of swollen synthesizer textures, but one quickly surmises that what he's saying is less critical than the overall effect created by the disease-laden song. “Silver Minds” warrants the Pink Floyd comparison not only for its ominous electro-acoustic sonic design but for unsettling lyrics that call to mind “Welcome to the Machine” (“Lie back / Close your eyes and sleep / The machines will hold you now...”). A dusty quality also surfaces in the desert twang of electric guitar shadings during “Keepers,” while Klein's noise and doom-metal inclinations emerge during the punishing instrumental passages within “Shadows” and “Morning Star.” In keeping with Klein's seemingly restless nature, the album never sits in one place for long, and multiple scene-changes occur within a single track. Offsetting the acoustic dimension of the project are numerous subtle production treatments, and a sense of threat and psychic disturbance repeatedly darkens Dust Songs' door, leaving the listener in a state of unease for much of the forty-eight-minute set.

January 2015