Andy Ortmann and Alex Barnett — Seasonal Attrition

Centre Tapes presents Seasonal Attrition, a collaborative effort by Andy Ortmann and Alex Barnett. For those unfamiliar, Ortmann hails from the windy city and is a long running experimental musician, perhaps best known for his work in Panicsville. Barnett, on the other hand, was a member of Oakeater and is more recently known for his collaborations with Faith Coloccia. Available as a C40, Seasonal Attrition offers 2 longform tracks that I can best describe as a playground of sonic detritus.

Track 1 is a veritable smorgasbord of layered and weaving sounds mixed with repetitive beats. This 20+ minute track is broken into 4 separate pieces. The first part mixes a throbbing bass line with a mangled robotic voice. Interwoven into the piece are some flickering static sounds and sprightly synth tones. This part wraps up around the 5 minute mark. Part 2 is an amalgamation of slow-paced beats, improvised keyboard jams, electro acoustic elements, reverberated pings, pongs and some controlled hiss for good measure. Overall, this stretch sounds rather somber. Around 11 minutes in, we’re treated to part 3. The segment unfolds with see-sawing synth tones, the sounds of a bell dinging, and xylophone sounding pings. For some reason I could imagine this part working as an interlude on Tom Waits’ Rain Dogs album. I don’t know why? The final part kicks in around 15:50 and features a collage of plodding beats, electronic worming, 8-bit video game stuff, static, winding synth tones, and some dense drone.

Track 2 is laid out similar to the first. It feels like 3 separate pieces, mostly due to the momentary lapses of silence that stand as a line of demarcation for each segment. For the first 10 minutes the track unfolds as a surprisingly melodic and playful synthesizer trip. Rhythmic at times, disjointed at others, the opening salvo feels the most “musical” on the disc.We’re also treated to some percussive beats that sound makeshift in nature. The second part of this track takes pieces of the first part, but focuses more on percussive elements, morphing the track into an almost tribal direction. It’s stays pretty rhythmic throughout this mid-section and the “drumming” sounds electro acoustic in nature, but it’s often hard to tell how these experimentalists craft their songs. The final part comes along at around the 16 minute point and is presented as free form layers of buzzing electronic tones and other synthy oddities. It’s noisier than the former part of this track, but still keeps the playful feeling that remains the connective thread of this piece throughout it’s 20 minute course.

Even by noise standards, collaborative efforts can often come off as too disjointed, unfocused, and free form to a fault. Barnett and Ortmann play nice and every sound present on Seasonal Attrition seems to work in unison. Someone once said to me that a successful collaboration of artists will often sound like the work of one. I’m not sure if that’s always true, but that could easily be said about this pairing. And in this case, consider it a high compliment.