Dirac Sea — Negative to the Power of Infinity
This release appeared in a physical edition of twenty copies- the CDR comes in a silver/ grey Spray painted CDR and DVD case- with half of the copies coming with coarse salt and the other half with rock salt lumps. There’s also a hand numbered inlay card, also spray painted. Sadly all twenty copies have gone now, so ones only option is to download this release from the labels band camp.
Dirac Sea is one of the projects of the highly talented Seattle, Washington based noise maker Peter Keller- whose other projects are the excellent ghost bound static noise Geißt, Condo Horro, & Bacillus. This project has been active since 2017- so far put out three or so releases- with seemingly all of its release been on the more pared back, space-bound end of walled noise/static texturing side of things.
Each of the albums three tracks comes in around the twenty-minute mark, and each has a fairly lengthy title. So first up we have "Interstellar Waves at 1019eV"- this brings together feasting & scuttling static detail, with a slow simmer ambient synth drift. The textured elements bring to mind strange whipping, twisting & crawling organic life- while the semi warbling & hovering ambience adds a feeling of dark interstellar mystery & dread to the proceedings. Also amping up the atmosphere another notch is the occasional swishing & sweeping tones, which add subtle eerier-ness to the track. It’s certainly a great start to the album- really pulling you into unsettled-yet-alien feasting out of space.
Track two is the lengthily titled “Negative Charged Muon (Lifetime of 2.19703 × 10−6 Seconds) Courting A Negative Charged Pion (Lifetime of 2.6030 × 10−8 Seconds)”- and here we see the blending of rapidly scuttling & scraping layer texturing- with a backdrop of brooding-yet- spacy synth hum & scorching pulse sears. Whereas the first track felt like we were floating through the stars, as something alien starts to meld with you- this track feels like the journey has now stopped, and ones stuck on a large rock, as the life form rapidly accelerate it’s feasting & consuming you. It really is both unsettling & somehow fascinating, as Keller skillful & subtle builds the textured detail to a defined gallop.
Lastly, we have “Probing the Void”- here we see the bringing together of dense & detailed matt of pops, clicks, swirls & feast detail- with a more subtle ambient undercurrent, which just consists of distant spacey harmonic drifts & ebbs. As the track progresses I can make out faint sub-bass ebbs, and this enhanced by more slurred drone & rumbles. This track seems to nicely finish off our sonic tale- as here it feels like all of your human elements have all but gone, and you're just left as a feasting & slurping mass with a vaguely humanoid shape- as you make your way through a hauntingly strange & surreal planetscape.
With each of his projects Keller managers to create a distinctive & unequal atmospheres- and with Dirac Sea he really does summon up the feeling of both space-bound, and alien atmospherics- and he does so in such a masterful & creative manner. Negative to the Power of Infinity is yet another wonderful defined, skilled & clever release from Keller- which really pushing the possibilities of walled noise/ static texturing to new heady levels- he really is head & shoulders above many artists in the scene- and really that’s what makes it so frustrating with the often small pressing his work get....as more people need to hear his work. It's really worth trying to track down an original physical copy of this release if at all possible...as this is most certainly one of the wall-noise highlights of 2019.