: foundry indices : reviews : sounds : : : news : pictures : words : : : the foundry : hypnos REVIEWS from e|i [Issue 3 - Spring 2004] http://www.ei-mag.com/ Various Artists SUB.TERRA (The Foundry) From small things big things one day come. Project originator John Koch-Northrup, who records as Interstitial, founded this excellent "rethink" project ("remix" is somewhat inappropriate here), an experiment to build full works using only a trumpet as fundamental sound source. The four artists who took part in the recontextualization were free to do what they wished with the trumpet fragments. The result? A reinterpretation in every sense of the word; the horn's embittered cry still emanates from the six tracks (numbers one and six are Interstitial's original and his own reconstitution of the participants' entries, respectively), its characteristics subsumed in the mix yet each artist affixing his stamp prominently on each. The reverie of LP surface noise simmering along Vir Unis' own red-hot fractal grooves nominally buttress the trumpet's cool, arcing blasts. Reducing his radiant tones to nearly infinitesimal sizes, Vidna Obmana situates the horn's bleating heart in a gaping extrasolar void colored as dark as pitch. Saul Stokes electrifies the site and blurs anything remotely corporeal into gelatinous layers of soot and suet, held in check by his insistent moonfunk beats. Returning back to the void, Michael Bentley's Kubrickian monolithic pulse looks to summon ancient primordial gods decidedly unhappy about the intrusion. Interstitial then firms up the whole enterprise with his final call, sixteen minutes of stalking drones, cricket cackle and rubbery sequencer throb. Here's a Foundry forging lead into gold. (Benjamin Burke)