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from E/I - AUDIO VERITE (INSTALLMENT 1 / February 2007) http://ei-mag.com/verite0001.php#04 M. BENTLEY This World (The Foundry) VARIOUS ARTISTS Thing Asunder (The Foundry) Michael Bentley is the man behind The Foundry, now fairly established as a music imprint since the mid 90s, though initially a mixed-mode personal receptacle for esoteric pursuits such as cultivating "chapbooks." To these ears, The Foundryıs in-house aesthetic, as evidenced on Thing Asunder and This World alike, is one imbued with the same spirit of neo-formalistic conceptualism as certain types of "academic" electronic music. The label seems to tap into cerebral rather than sensual aspects stimulated by sound, playing to homo cogitans rather than sentiens‹the musical material being part of a configuration of design devices oriented towards elevation of thought. What this means is that the bulk of This World and Thing Asunder exists as a somewhat inert art-e-fact, almost dessicated in the airlessness within the curatorıs glass display cabinet. And in this respect perhaps it may be hazarded that Bentleyıs sensibility and trade is more that of a pomo-backwoods da Vinci - or at least someone for whom musical expression is but one string to an intellectual artisanıs bow. This World is Bentleyıs first solo release in over four years, and is composed of two long-format conceptual pieces: the first, "Chronos & Kairos," is an exploration (or perhaps a "study," given its relative musical parsimony) of the passage and impact of time upon our bodies and rhythmic cores. The second, "Import," was originally released on the limited run Fällt sublabel project invalidObject, and is re-presented here as a companion piece, a series of fragments, of 15 one-minute sonic vignettes. Bentleyıs approach is one that combines elements of ambient, environmental, and microsound, even musique concréte, or audio-narrative, situating itself towards the more abstract end of the musical continuum - one intersecting with sound design/sonic installation art. "Chronos & Kairos" is divided into six sections, opening with "Time (fabricated)" wherein the ticking of a clock is attended by sparse tonalities and micro-sonic doodle and patter. "Time (retrograde)" picks up echoes, hiccup-clicks, and arcane etherea that percolate across the soundfield. "Sine (of the Times)" slipslides into a world of undulations, respirating sinewaves marking time, while on "Parvane" Bentley choreographs formalistic ambient tone-clusters in occasional motifs of minimal musicality together with field recordings of jet engines and other elements. "Kairos (storm)" sees the temporal semiotic return with light metronomics, and the sound of rain and thunder as the somnific flux continues onto "Chronos (night)," glitching with rhythmicized DSP-ed crickets. "Import," by comaprison, is a less cohesive affair, though beginning again with field recordings that dissolve into ambient sonorities, it morphs into abrasive texture maps and dissonant digi-diagrams, errant loops dissipating into granular chaos. This World is diverting enough in its way, but its strange sense of removal, of something being absent, makes it difficult to feel anything more committed in response. Thing Asunder is another kindred spirit Bentley project, one on which he enlists the services of other sound artists and musicians as conceptual contributors, or rather, as actual contributors, to his concept/conceit. In this case, the inspiration came in the form of a chapbook created by Bentley using the cut-up text assemblage technique beloved of boho neıer-do-wells since time immemorial (or at least the 50s and the drug-haze days of early Bill Burroughs). So here Bentley (two tracks) conspires with fellow audio-collagists Earwicker, Ben Swire, and Steve Brand (one track each) to fashion a collection of medium-length pieces grouped under the programmatic heading, "a sonic soliloquy on the arbitrary nature of meaning and the mutability of form." The different artists (though each mediates their interpretations with differing degrees of compositional and timbral engagement) share a Bentleyan unity of sonic vision. (Alan Lockett) www.foundrysite.com