electrocd

Where’s the CD Review?

Matthew McFarlane, Where’s the Beat?, May 4, 2002

In trying to get a grasp on John Young’s musical style and own personal language I wondered whether it might have anything to do with the remoteness of his native New Zealand. Right from the opening work, Pythagoras’s Curtain, Young’s musical style places itself out of the confines of the traditional acousmatic school. It’s the daring simplicity of it all that I like so much. Don’t listen to this disc while bathing your pet parrot or doing your dishes. Sit down, quiet the environment around you and prepare to listen very carefully. Inner, demands the same attention as the first. Young’s exploration of sonic manipulation is wonderful here, as is his conceptual use of space. Unlike the mind chilling drones and loops of recent EA discs, Young explores dry and often nearly extinguishable sounds. Young’s exploration of rain sounds in Liquid Sky is wonderful. Until more than two minutes into the sixteen-minute piece, the sounds are dissected until they are unrecognisable. There is something shocking about all of this. Young throws us for a loop by pulling out his sound microscope and delving into the inner recesses of a few sounds. A very interesting disc.

It’s the daring simplicity of it all that I like so much.