PBK & Modeldau — The Dead Time

The Dead Time is a six-track release that sits somewhere between woozy droning noise, grim-to-unwell ambience, and general seared-yet-troubled electro texturing. It’s a release to put you on edge, creep you out, and unsettling- and I must say it manages to do these with a great amount of success.

The release appeared in October of last year on Illinois based Oxidation- as a CD release. The disc comes presented in dull four-panel digipak- featuring greyed TV static imagery, white texts and a red backdrop- so a nicely moody and low-key bit of packaging that lets the listener paint their own personal visual unsettlement of the release/ tracks.

The album is a collaboration between Chicago based PBK, and  Netherlands based Modelbau. PBK has been active since the late ’80s, putting out around a hundred plus releases. And Modelbau since the early 2010’s- so both projects are long-running, skilled, and prolific sound makers- and together they create a fairly distinctive sound with The Dead Time.
 
Featured here are six tracks- and these have runtimes between three and seven minutes, each with subtle unsettling titles. We move from the wonky and waving drone meets whistling industrial ambient sear of “Fatal”, onto the locked tolling grim-ness and tricking water knock of “Deeper”. We have the warbling and unwell harmonics of “Knife” with its uneasy and tense texturing toppings, and the buried glum electro meets eerier radio sweepings of “Wound”. With the tracks working singularly well, but also the album as a whole has been a consistent journey into unease and sour tension.
 
 
All in all, The Dead Time is a most worthy collaboration- and if you enjoy where noise/ambient meet, and breed to create new unsettlement- this is something you’ll be wanting to check out this release. And to do just that head here.