For those of us less inclined to molly and the lure of the club floor, a useful if reductionist cut through the ever-proliferating genres of electronic music might look something like this: there are those who sequence and there are those who don’t. This could ease the usual consternation over the adequacy of terms that have as much similarity as difference. Is that EDM or IDM? The tempo is under 130 bpm, so what is it then? I miss the techno catchall, for it served as a kind of shibboleth among non-DM folks, who could only get into electronic synthesis once someone proved to them that you could make things that no person in their right mind would dance to, and that the specific history of the technology (the synthesizer) had more to do with conjuring the spirits of the nether reaches than any repeatable groove or pattern.

Enter synthesizer stalwart Mark Solotroff, who has made an album, Today the Infinite, Tomorrow Zero, that simultaneously looks backwards and forwards in its rootedness in the history of the technology he employs. Over 10 tracks, each of the exact same length (6:05), Solotroff takes us on a journey of pure sonic exploration whose continuity – this is the truly remarkable character of the album – refuses and bypasses the all-too-recent history of electronic music cum dance soundtrack. Each of the 10 compositions has its own textural character, but the overall feeling is one of sounds being suffocated, snuffed out before they turn into the stuff of producers and grooveheads. Throughout each of the tracks, the fluidity, the organic wholeness, of Solotroff’s work is on display, a feat of synthesis on par with the eponymous machines. Of course, one could easily put this in the drone drawer and be done with it, but the striking similarities between the sonic nature of alien transmissions and the rumbling acoustic territory beneath are feet, might be overshadowed in the process. 

Today the Infinite, Tomorrow Zero will appeal to anyone with the temperament to appreciate it, which means that the genre police will be left scratching their heads (just as long as the heads don’t nod!). Think of outer space, the universe without light, or those magical moments between songs when the microphones managed to capture more than they should have. Very highly recommended!