Architects Office — Soundtracks

Here’s another archival release from Monochrome Vision, collecting previously unreleased (and already released) tracks from Architects Office’s history. Architects Office, according to the liner notes, were an ‘electro-acoustical intuitive aleatoric music-making performance & project group’; who operated around the US during the 1980s, and into the early ‘90s - being best known for their work with the experimental filmmaker, Stan Brakhage. Their membership was fluid and changing, but centralised around the one consistent member: Joel Haertling. ‘Soundtracks’ gathers up ten tracks, with durations varying from two minutes to nearly fourteen; but they’re all pretty much cut from the same cloth.

That cloth is a somewhat dated-sounding (as it might be - that’s not necessarily a crime), abstract version of ‘80s cassette culture. In practice, this means meandering tracks (frankly ‘jams’ is a more apt word), primarily created using keyboards and synths, tapes and some acoustic instruments (French Horn, for example). To cut to the quick, I can’t help but feel that the tracks display a lack of ‘musicality’: the vast majority are simply overwhelmingly atonal - not in an interesting way (to cite obvious examples, Beefheart or some modern classical works), but in the sense that people have just chucked various things into a bucket and hoped that they’ll mix somehow. For most of the time, they really don’t. It may as well be various people improvising separately in various rooms - and not half as interesting as that sounds. It could, of course, work nicely on a textural level; as a tangle of smaller elements, combining into a greater whole. However, there is little gripping as far as colour or timbre go; not helped by ‘80s delays and the suspicion that many of the ‘instrument’ sounds are in fact derived from keyboard presets. Ultimately, there seems to be a lack of direction or intent.

Its hard to recommend this in any way - which is a tad brutal, but here we are. Its possibly interesting from a historical perspective, but I’m not well versed enough to answer that question. On that angle, its notable (and odd, frankly) that the last track is a two-minute edit of the second piece on the compilation - with the justification that this edit inspired a 1988 Brakhage film. It does rather feel rather like its inclusion is there to highlight this link. So… As I’ve said, this may be of interest from a historical or Brakhage-related viewpoint; but otherwise, its nigh unlistenable for these ears.