[…] Nothing can be farther from the canon of academic experimentation than No Type’s unique, often grassroots and utterly leftfield roster. While the label is well known for its online releases (including brilliant early work by Tomas Jirku), a slew of output as the label went to CD circa 2002 established its tenacity in the field of improvisation and composition. The admixture is found in Max Haiven and Jon Vaughn’s Front (2003), which is one of few forays in non-academic music to establish parameters of interpretation for the listener. This eruptive, somewhat spontaneous, rough, at times chaotic, other times meditabve disc is a disjointed narrative of the history of electronie music; or, the history of electronic music from the front of its cabal — its avant-garde. In live performance at Rien à voir in Montréal in 2003, Vaughn rolled down the stairs in a blanket and flashlight, then fied up an antique turntable with rope after playing slo-motion air guitar; meanwhile, Haiven scribbled on a script before the two did mixer-battle with noise and collage cut-ups, ending with an embarrassingly bad songwriter duet. It was, at once, both incredibly naïve and yet absolutely self-reflexively so. […]
