B°tong, Emerge – Split
27,00 € VAT Included
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“This split LP by Swiss “dark ambient” artist B°tong and label founder EMERGE inaugurates a new series of limited edition split LPs on white vinyl in unique hand-painted sleeves on Attenuation Circuit. Each vinyl release on the German-based experimental music label comes in a limited edition of 100 copies, with each copy painted in the same colours yet a unique design by Tine Klink and an inlay card lavishly designed by graphic artist Jens Börner. The first release combines an original 22-minute track by B°tong and a composition by EMERGE which uses the same source material to create a work in its own right.
Soaring cosmic harmonies with a dissonant edge, digital glitches and voices processed beyond all recognition, and a constant tension building up through minimal variations, but massive layering of sawtooth-flavoured loops: never has it been more obvious that B°tong’s music is not necessarily about “darkness” or any of the spiritual/occult subjects that he likes to toy with in his liner quotes, but about states of mind different from the everyday. In this track about the sun (sic!), “musique spectrale” meets the high (drug-induced or not) of the rave and the pleasures of minimalist repetition and proves that, 100 years after Cage’s birthday, experimental music outside an academic framework can still yield some quite psychedelic results (even without mushrooms).
EMERGE creates a perfect match for B°tong’s track. First on a conceptual level as he uses sound sources supplied by B°tong as the basis of his composition, but also because the spaciousness of his “musique concrète” composition complements the spaced-out feel of the B°tong side in an organic way. More metallic, gritty, rough, and machine-like than the B°tong track, EMERGE continues the sonic journey through imaginary spacescapes begun on the B°tong side of the LP with his own characteristic fusion of subsonic bass drones and high-pitched melodies whose timbral richness suggests sound sources as different as the horror-film ice-cream van, metal percussion, or a glass harmonica.”
Limited hand-numbered edition of 100 copies on slightly marbled white vinyl.
