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HMS 002
irr. app. (ext.)
Ozeanische Gefügle
CD
Release Date: July 13, 2004
sold out
"irr. app. (ext) is the work of California-based
sound artist Matt Waldron, whose collected body of work
is far too important to continue to be forgotten. During
the past decade, only two full albums -- Dust Pincher
Appliances (2003 on Crouton) and An Uncertain Animal,
Ruptured; Tissue Expanding in Conversation (1997 on
Fire, Inc.) -- have seen the light of day despite the
fact that perhaps a dozen albums have been completed.
The public silence for irr. app. (ext) was never by Waldron's
design, as numerous recording deals collapsed, one after
the other. The story becomes all the more of conundrum
as these misadventures of neglect and ignorance occurred
despite Waldron's high-profile collaborations with Nurse
With Wound and Stilluppsteypa. If a humble organization
like the Helen Scarsdale Agency can have its say, then
we speak to remove whatever curses that have haunted irr.
app. (ext.) in the past and provide the world with the
opportunity to revel in the spectacle and the beauty that
is Matt Waldron's art.
Had things gone differently, Ozeanische Gefühle
would have been one of the lost irr. app. (ext.) recordings.
That would have been a shame for Ozeanische Gefühle
stands as an impeccable composition of post-surrealist
dronescaping rivaling such masterpieces as The Hafler
Trio's Kill The King, Jonathan Coleclough &
Andrew Chalk's Sumac, and Nurse With Wound's Soliloquy
For Lilith.
The title has origins with Freud and earlier thinkers;
yet Waldron came across Ozeanische Gefühle
(which translates from the German as "oceanic feelings")
in his studies of Wilhelm Reich who referenced the term
to describe the natural state of every healthy organism
as connected to and engaged with the world around it,
with its energies flowing from the center outwards. For
Waldron, Reich's ideas became the starting point for a
metonymic exercise seeking to discover that which is near
a signifier and spiral beyond each successive discovery
along a complicated aesthetic thread by way of intuition
and accident.
The album tumbles through a series of sympathetic dronings,
field recordings, and performative gestures, continuously
traversing the emotional polarities of psychological tension
and externalized jouissance. The album begins with a heavily
processed flutter of sustained woodwinds accompanied by
thunderous rumbles in the distance before dispersing amidst
Bernhard Hermann-esque slashings of discordant strings.
Later on, the grotesque pathos of a Wurlitzer organ dissolves
into a blackened emptiness that envelopes the complex
resonant frequencies from Waldron's slow, deliberate performance
upon bowls and bells. Despite the incredible depth of
his source materials, Waldron displays an uncanny intellect
that reflects all of his wandering passages through the
lens of a melancholic ambience. Simply put, Ozeanische
Gefühle is a wonder to behold." -- Helen
Scarsdale, June 2004
Reviews:
Vital
Brainwashed
Touching
Extremes
Hinah.com
Igloo
Magazine
Foxy
Digitalis
Paris
Transatlantic
Lost
At Sea
The
Sound Projector
Scrapyard Forecast |
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