ARTICLES
Listening Post: E. Honig
Label Profile: Ad Noiseam

ALBUMS
Leo Abrahams
Ammoncontact
Anka
Lloyd Barrett
Beach House
Bibio
Christina Carter
Davis & Jerman
Ecstatic Sunshine
Ensemble
Fluorescent Grey
Freiband
[guÿôm]
Chris Herbert
Home Video
Larvae
Lullabye Arkestra
Mathieu / Schaefer
MONO & w. end girlfriend
My Robot Friend
Nicolay
Pieter Nooten
Nuccini
Obfusc
Objekt4
Over the Atlantic
Para One
Proem
Red Sparowes
The Remote
Root 70
Florencia Ruiz
Ryuichi Sakamoto
Alan Sparhawk
Andy Stott
Thumbtack Smoothie
Tortoise
Triosk
Vlor

COMPILATIONS/MIXES
Ad Noiseam 2001-2006
Another Generic Sampler
Bip-Hop Generation 8
Diary of a Sweet Day
Idea Hoard Uncut
Innature
Morrow Choral Orchestra
Noise Factory Vol. 3
Squadron 2
Warp Works

3"/7"/10"/12"/EPs
Alias & Tarsier
Audion
Caroline
Home Video
Iz & Diz
Sami Koivikko
Mai
Mathhead
Monomachine
Narcotic Syntax
Quinoline Yellow
Sigur Rós
Samartzis & English
Samartzis & Inada
Andy Vaz
Andy Vaz Remixes
Waterprotection

Thumbtack Smoothie: Fall Back
Quake Trap

Thumbtack Smoothie's (San Francisco-based sonic alchemist Carl Coletti) approach to experimental electronic music-making is unorthodox, to say the least. Transferring his percussive skills into the digital realm, the one-time ‘traditional' drummer generates his material by ‘playing' his engorged sampler pads in real time and triggering via hand gestures infrared light D-Beam controllers that further alter the sampled sounds. The explorative and spontaneous results seem like a natural outgrowth of the process; what's less predictable is the material's almost suffocating density and nightmarish ambiance. Though one can occasionally hear traces of hip-hop, industrial, and drum'n'bass in Fall Back's dozen pieces, Thumbtack Smoothie's music is like some lumbering, semi-dazed monstrosity that fiendishly devours everything in its path as it scours the fringes for signs of life: “Chipple” belches and groans like the amplified soundtrack of an animal's digestive system, “Let the Rhythm Point...Quickly...Yogi” grotesquely grinds before expiring, and “Monkupine” approximates the sound of skin being peeled from one's flesh layer by layer. The album's sound is often so alien that, when snippets of synth melodies appear at the start of “Ember,” the moment almost startles for sounding so conventionally ‘musical.' File under ‘Uneasy Listening' for sure.

October 2006