Circle of Dust
Disengage
Flying Tart
Based upon the liner notes, it looks like this release is the last we’ll hear from Circle of Dust, as Klay Scott (who is/was Circle of Dust) has moved on to other projects, like magic shows. Disengage is a collection of hard cyber-goth or cyberpunk (whichever floats your boat) odds and ends recorded between 1991 and 1997. I think it’s perhaps a bit of a tragedy that Circle of Dust had to end, because the music is so polished, each song seems like it was designed using the latest numerical modeling techniques rather than simply taken from a frustrated kid’s journals. They’re like digital mosaics, with every individual “stone” placed with excruciating precision, most likely the tolerance was calculated in ngstroms.
I’m particularly intrigued by two songs, “Perelandra” and “Thulcandra,” which are names C.S. Lewis assigned to Venus and Earth in his books Pe_relandra_ and Out of the Silent Planet, respectively. Where does the philosophy underlying Lewis’ stories fit into Circle of Dust? Those names didn’t just pop out. Likewise, what is behind “Babylon” or “Chasm”?
On the second part of the album, called “Refractorism,” the songs change to more easily-deciphered titles, like ““Leveler 1 (Easier to Hate)” and “Deadly Love.” It seems that the first part had Circle of Dust building songs around exploratory literature, only to “grow up” into some sort of bored electronic cyborg, which ended up dismantling itself and starting over. Circle of Dust were thinking-person’s industrial and are worth checking-out. I for one want to know more about the C.S. Lewis connection. Flying Tart Records, 1227 16th Avenue South, Nashville, TN 37212
