Dekorder
For this CD, Marc Richter aka Black To Comm – who is also the label’s boss – utilized Casio and Farfisa organs, a huge amount of electronics and treatments and voice to concoct what the press release keeps describing as a “drone album”. The only way in which one can refer to that term is that all the pieces are harmonically immovable, based as they are on fixed “tonal” centres; yet there’s much more to find in Fractal Hair Geometry, an easy-to-digest outing realized via a systematic process of layering of semi-static tones, altered vocal emissions and – in “Leigh Bowery” – a 4/4 pseudo-disco beat.
As opposed to certain arrogant-sounding projects in which what shines is exclusively the composer’s sense of self, this record – which, let me be extremely clear, doesn’t belong on my hypothetical desert island anyway – is lively, funny and enjoyable. The tracks are crafted with genuine good intentions, a naïveté which renders them akin to the collections of toys of those children who don’t like going out to play with friends, preferring instead to remain secluded in their room building strange structures inhabited by teddy bears and rubber dogs. Millions of microscopic sonic events succeeding at breakneck speed while a (preferably detuned) organ symbolizes the termination of any pretence of compositional wizardry. This is music that exists merely for the duration of this selection, but in that time span it works quite alright - which is already a success.
