Top Bar
Musique Machine Logo Home ButtonReviews ButtonArticles ButtonBand Specials ButtonAbout Us Button
SearchGo Down
Search for  
With search mode in section(s)
And sort the results by
show articles written by  
 Review archive:  # a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z

William Basinski + Richard Chartier - Aurora Liminalis [Line - 2013]

Now in its second edition of 500, Aurora Liminalis is the second collaboration from these East Coast minimalists. Whereas the three untitled pieces produced by the pair in 2003 blended their solo experiments with the Voyetra 8, an analog synth module of the early Eighties, this new release, consisting of a single 45 minute piece, offers no such information on its ingredients nor intent.

However, given the pedigree and consistent focus of these composers, where Basinski's compositions exploit the unpredictable qualities of redundant media and entropic tape loops while Chartier is more disposed to fragile digital sound sculptures, the results are an expert fusion of the commonalities and tensions between their idiosyncratically different working methods.

Growing very gradually from an atmospheric rumble, Basinski and Chartier augment their listener's reality with sonorous, suspended tones that arc and soar to describe elemental movements on a planetary scale. Their natural surges move with the perceived speed of a distant aircraft, it's seemingly slow trajectory is an illusion that masks the true speed and turbulence felt in the cockpit. In this way, the sound suggests distant, large movements in a heavy, portentous sky. Then, less than a quarter of the way in the charged particles suggested by its title further animate the sonic vista in the form of percussive taps and emboldened tones smoothly, yet ominously, expanding.

It's a majestic, if lonely, journey as their daunting atmospherics sail through quelled and quietened passages to arrive in billowing and thunderous beyonds. The feedback-like glassy tones that gild their surging sound-field shine with a delicate grace that obscures an underlying sense of menace, like the beauty of a sparkling sea, when observed from a distance, hides its merciless, deathly power.

And it's this evocation of the strength and elegance of the elementsthat make Aurora Liminalis such a compelling experience. The atmosphere Basinski and Chartier have expertly built is both graceful and wild, at once an inviting and intriguing experience and yet to be feared.

Rating: 4 out of 5Rating: 4 out of 5Rating: 4 out of 5Rating: 4 out of 5Rating: 4 out of 5

Russell Cuzner
Latest Reviews

William Basinski + Richard Charti...
Now in its second edition of 500, Aurora Liminalis is the second collaboration from these East Coast minimalists. Whereas the three untitled pieces produced ...
011223   High Tide - The Complete Libe...
011223   Gorguts - From Wisdom to Hate
011223   Various Artists - Destination...
301123   Journey to the Centre of the ...
301123   Footprints - Footprints(Blu Ray)
301123   Takashi Watanabe - One
291123   Black Leather Jesus - Rider
281123   Seamus Cater - A History of ...
281123   Jürg Frey - String Trio
281123   Meitei - Kofū III
Latest Articles

IO - Of Sound, Of Art, Of Expression
IO is a Brazilian visual artist, scenographer, fashion designer, performer and electronic music producer from Porto Alegre. Sonically her works move between ...
181023   IO - Of Sound, Of Art, Of Exp...
210923   Lucky Cerruti - Of Not so Fri...
290823   The Residents - The Trouble W...
110723   Yotzeret Sheydim Interview - ...
250523   TenHornedBeast - Into The Dee...
050523   Bill Morroni - The Trials & ...
280323   Magnus Granberg - Finding Emo...
230223   Trou Aux Rats - The Funeral I...
020223   The Residents & Support - Liv...
300123   Worship - In Praise Of Walled...
Go Up
(c) Musique Machine 2001 -2023. Twenty two years of true independence!! Mail Us at questions=at=musiquemachine=dot=comBottom