Zeitblom
Bioplex In Delay – Environments #1
Tourette
Bioplex In Delay – Environments #1 is the debut solo release from German laptop wizard Zeitblom. His name may seem familiar from his collaborations with his Austrian counterparts Christian Fennesz and Peter Niemand, and the Golden Tone project with Fennesz and Music For an Isolation Tank with Fennesz and Niemand are his only other recorded projects (to my knowledge).
This release is very different from many of the microsound-esque records out now. Laptop artists like TV Pow, Fennesz, and Jim O’Rourke tend to focus on creating a tangible sense of dynamism. With the incredible sound palette available to them, they cycle through ideas with extraordinary speed, executing with the click of a mouse what it would take hours to do with magnetic tape. Zeitblom’s solo effort is very different. He designed this CD with a museum gallery in mind. The term “environments” is crucial to this work, because the four tracks spread over two CDs exist as slowly and gradually developing sound fields. In terms of structure, Zeitblom’s work more resembles the gradually unfolding ideas of Vladislav Delay than the rapid-fire edits of Richard Devine. Timbrally; however, it’s very obvious that Zeitblom is closely aligned to the Mego school of sound production. While Fennesz work has those beautiful, warm guitar induced clouds of distortion, Zeitblom’s work is comprised of miniscule grains of sound. There is an implied sense of melody, but most of the sonic space is taken up by brittle bits of sound. They are repeated, and changed so slowly, that it is hard to pinpoint exactly when the track shifted in character.
Bioplex In Delay – Environments #1 is an excellent collection of slow moving sound fields. It’s a surprisingly meditative release, and suits the living room as much as it does the gallery space.
Tourette, ReLiTo@t-online.de, http://www.zeitblom.de
