Seth Thorn is a violinist and coder – not necessarily two things that traditionally jibe – though today is certainly not traditional, by any stretch of the imagination. Thorn is a live improviser, and his first album, a curious doubling of terms, parades all of his talents, of which there are many. Things begin rather peacefully, the violin taking centre stage, but quickly the larger field in which it appears becomes populated by the machinic, in Thorn's terms. Similar experiments follow, including a church organ ringing out on "taking to heart", though the lo-fi tape flutter reminds us we are definitely not in the pews. The track concludes by submerging all of this under synthetic oceans, drowning any vestiges of the organic beneath its waves.
Thorn is adept, as are the best improvisers, at smoothing his transitions, making sure that nothing gets in the way of the durational experience of listening. Layers are added or subtracted without fanfare, as on "machinic heterogeneticist" (say that 10 times fast), which plays backwards and seems to swallow up all the flotsam that came before. Nothing can really prepare listeners for the final track, "morbid symptomatic logic", which sounds more like golden-era Autechre than any of the tracks that preceded it, complete with the dry cuts and breaks that made 90s IDM so compelling. We've reached the arid shores, I guess.
Fans of expertly crafted improvisation with acoustic and electronics will appreciate Thorn's attention to detail and pacing. Others with a penchant for the more organic side of computer music, should also find a curious doubling of terms a worthy listen. For
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