Gagarin
Corvid
GEO Records
The guy behind this project is Graham “Dids” Dowdall, who was associated with Cleveland’s’ Avant-garage band Pere Ubu. Harkening back to the French “Concrete Music” movement of the post war, pre-digital experience, this record mixes multiple sources of sounds. Some are clearly musicians playing instruments in some sort of a western chordal structure, others are the whispers of Avant-Garde synthesizer work, others are fond noises or melodic synthesis of sci-fi soundtracks. While rhythm is always present, its not always the driver of any given track; rather it exists more as an urban back drop, sort of like watching building fly by as two movies actors interact in a moving vehicle. Track names are of little help; they range from cryptic “Seekers after the truth”, “Winterfold”. Others are linguistic games “Reynard”, “Dorsomorphin” or just cryptic “Theta”, “Alienist”. This is a distinctively moody record, an enjoyable soundscape, and possibly a small slice of some grander project.