Music From SEAMUS, Vol. 31
New Focus, 2022
9/10
Listen to Music From SEAMUS, Vol. 31
SEAMUS continue their series of releasing their back catalog with new recordings, and this installment features 9 compositions of electronic music that’s highly creative and certainly atypical.
Jon Fielder’s “Think” starts the listen and soundtracks a descent into schizophrenia, where 9 minutes of pulsating electronics and wordless versus mumbed talking mesh with much allure, while “Heat Shield”, by Maggi Payne, uses a Moog synthesizer, a cricket sampling and a lot of strategic buzzing.
Entering the middle, Nina C. Young’s “Always And Forever” emits a mysterious, dreamy tone that embraces acoustic samples and timbre manipulation, while “Succubus” is full of a more forceful energy that includes nonsense vocal acrobatics and plenty of well planned noise that’s oddly sci-fi in the Brian Riordan piece.
Becky Brown’s “Dark Place” arrives late in the listen, and breeds ominous glitching amid the female voices throughout, and “Whale Song Standing”, by David Q. Nguyen, emulates the sounds of quick moving water, and that motion continues with a curious emotional depth.
An institution of music since 1984, SEAMUS has never fit into one category, and that’s just as evident as ever across these electro-acoustic gestures that will always be enthralling.
Travels well with: SEAMUS- Music From SEAMUS, Vol. 30; Peter Gilbert- Burned Into The Orange