12" EP 1998
Scary and noisy (without being, you know, "noisy") computer synthesis exercises on what is perhaps the most unexpected Comatonse release to date. No pretense of 'ambient' or 'house' or anything but the idea of computer mangled sound. One side features two tracks totalling 13 plus minutes of music; the first, "Fugue" sounds like an endless flanged out synth freakout (somewhat Spectrum-ish) with jet-engine sounds channel hopping through your head. The second track retains that weird flange madness feel over a more structured Dome-like series of mechanical 'rhythms' and drones. The side long (8 minutes) track on the flipside "Stochastic Etude" begins with some odd wobbly percussion samples laying down the post-human boogie while all sorts of digital eruptions flow in and out of hearing range at a leisurely pace - later the track morphs into a nearly placid squiggle-fest the likes of which I haven't heard since Tim Blake (a 45 on 33 especially) walked these lands. Wow. A pretty benign slice of music, and a full CD of this would go down even more nicely, I'm certain.