Living
Ornaments / Accelera Deck
"Narrominded Split LP Series #1" CD
Narrominded
Genres: experimental electronic, electronica, glitch
Narrominded
Gevers van Endegeeststraat 10
2132 SM Hoofddorp
The Netherlands
Dec 13 - 19 2004 |
It's a shame this split LP was only released in a limited edition, as
it has some truly inspired music on it. The work of Dutch duo Living
Ornaments is really incredible - they compose warm, glitchy
soundscapes that stay within an accessible realm. Bits of
tunefulness and melody are buried amidst electronic fuzz and crispy
pops and clicks. Their part of the split is broken into eleven
short tracks, but these flow into one another very well.
Although their style is definitely sound art, its texture lends it an
accessibility not common in the genre. The split LP is worth
buying for Living Ornaments' part alone.
However, there are two sides to every split (unless it's a three-
or four-way split...), and Accelera Deck can't be
ignored. Their style is much less accessible than that of Living
Ornaments, but it is still worth a listen. Accela Deck
(from the USA) is much noisier than their splitmate; their first track
(of four), "Feedback Song," is a very abrasive track that
treads the outer boundaries of harsh noise. "Eidolic"
is less of an aural irritant, fortunately - though it is still much
less calm than Living Ornaments' work. The main focus of Accelera
Deck's side of this LP is "Spangle," a twelve minute
drone that eventually degrades into an acoustic guitar sample.
It is a remarkably beautiful piece of experimental electronic music,
but a good attention span is required to stay with it until the end.
Overall, this is a solid introduction into Narrominded's new set of
split LPs. If future installments are as strong as this outing,
there should be much to look forward to on the horizon. Bring it
on!
85%
Fun Fact: In addition to making music
together, Living Ornaments' Lars Meyer and Coen
Polack are the duo behind Narrominded's label activities.
According to their bio, they "like to use tasty but obscure Dutch
words as their tracktitles."
Matt Shimmer [Vitals:
15 tracks, distributed by the
label, released 2003] |