This album appeared last August and is (to date) the latest offering from UK label Hydrogen Dukebox. Why talk about it now, more than six months after its release? Because maybe, just maybe, if we lavish R. Simeon Bowring with attention we won’t have to wait another eleven years for more.

His previous, Anthology, appeared in 1995 on Deviant and promptly vanished into the electronic netherworld. A double album that collected all of Pentatonik’s previous efforts, it was melody-drenched, technically beautiful, widescreen — a downtempo album that sits well alongside the best of guys like Beaumont Hannant and the Black Dog. What happened? Why has it taken over a decade for me to hear this man’s work?

With The Five Angels Bowring returns with his heart still securely stapled to his sleeve. Synth strings and pianos collide in delicately intricate patterns. The cinematic touch is in full effect, sometimes (as on “The Last One and the First” and “Love Is a Rose”) accompanied by the wistful, classically beautiful voice of Kirsty Hawkshaw. This is IDM in the old, Artificial Intelligence sense of the term, completely untainted by the post-Autechre glitchery of the past six (seven? eight?) years. It’s a refreshing, much-needed break.

It’s the individual sounds that shine here, and I can just imagine Bowring slaving over certain noises, tweaking them until he’s certain they will resonate for the listener. Or perhaps just for himself. Either way, The Five Angels is about the smooth integration of these fine-tuned, if sometimes disparate elements, rather than the ferocity/complexity of their presentation, a fact which sets this album apart from many of its contemporaries. You won’t find any dissected breaks here, but if it’s melody you’re after and perhaps a touch of oldschool “electronic listening music”, Pentatonik does not disappoint.

• Pentatonik
• Hydrogen Dukebox

For its super-special first interview polytree got in touch with a Mr. Daniel L. Williams of Louisiana, a man who is perhaps better known to the electronic world as acid-provocateur Thisket. Or at least he should be.

“Most of the music I make is kind of a subconscious nostalgia…”

What’s your situation? As in where do you live/what do you do? And how do these factors affect your creative process?

I live in two places – at a house where I grew up and at a college campus. All of my “gear” is at school (and there’s a lot of it), and I’ll go home without it on the weekends. It’s pretty annoying going back and forth, and I don’t really like either place at the moment. I hate school, but like the city atmosphere, and I hate being home, but like the familiar area and all the memories and walk routes/daydream time I have. I can get a good break on the weekends and bring it back to school and make music, sort of. Earlier in life I moved and lived all over the US and I have much fonder memories of then. Most of the music I make is kind of a subconscious nostalgia and desire to be somewhere else or in another time. It may or may not be accurate, but I’m probably just a melodramatic that overemphasizes his memories with tons of nostalgia and then makes music indirectly. Also, I loathe employment.

Describe your creative process. Where do the sounds come from? When is a track ‘finished’?

I’ll get an urge, and either make something blindly, try to make a mood, or build on a melody or concept I might play up/have stuck in my head on one of my synthesizers. I might spend two hours or so playing with things, building it up, getting it all right, and then I’ll hook up the mixer’s stereo out to my computer and record it over and over until I get all the movements/steps/etc. right. That’s usually when it’s finished, unless I add a second layer or it sucks and I shelf it. I put the best (around a third) of my music out and then get a few opinions and trim it down for releasing. Also, it’s all hardware (and mostly analogue) I work with.

Your most recent album, Trytry (released last month on Custom Music Records), takes the sound you established with The Golden Afternoon into darker, somewhat noisier territory. Is this a trend that will continue with future releases?

I like making music that has strong emotions, or is good for getting emotional with. Something like that. It all relates to my over-dramatic nostalgia and violently self-important memories (ha ha). When I released The Golden Afternoon, I just compiled the best music I had made over the past few months before its release that I had made recreationally at home before and shortly after I moved to school. For Trytry I got an urge to make a more aggressive/moody and direct sound. I like the idea of and will be making future releases more focused on some sort of feeling or whatnot. My ultimate goal is to make music where I can lay down and cry for hours to while remembering the way a certain place smelled. Really – I’m just terrible. Sorry.

What are your feelings about acid (the chemical and/or the sound)? What records in particular have influenced your sound aesthetics?

I really love most acid. I had to discover most of the music I like (and make) on my own from the first weird noise to the next growing up. It’s really hard for me to think I make acid, however mixed in with another genre I do so (I don’t own a 303 yet). My first records were the Titanic soundtrack and a lot of Weird Al tapes. I found Björk through the Weird Al show, then Richard James (and the rest of the scene) through Björk. A lot has influenced me, but most likely those first listens to “new and exciting music”. Or maybe the subsequent 100 listens. It’s really hard to say which ones in particular influenced me the most.

Does Thisket play live? Is this something you’re interested in?

Yes, I have twice, actually. Both were pretty mild and uneventful (and slightly embarrassing), but I hope to play live a lot more. I get incredibly nervous and have to pop a few dolls beforehand, but the experience is always unbelievably fun and exhilarating. I probably won’t lug out all my stuff (which is a slightly uncomfortable issue) until I have lots more insurance and a bunch of bodyguards.

What are your thoughts on the net label scene?

It’s really neat, but it hurts my head to think of it all. First and foremost, I get kind of grossed out by being on the internet, and I get so confused looking at all these people. How much goddamn music IS there? However, I’ve found and met some really cool people. I find it a really nice concept that people from across the world can transfer music and others distribute it freely.

Do you see Thisket as a hobby necessarily? Would you be interested in releasing material through record labels?

I consider it to be part of me. I’m so into it now that I’m well-acquainted with things that it makes me kind of sick sometimes. I’ve had a track laid down and ready to record before, and I went through the house turning all of the lights and stuff off because I was paranoid that the power might brown out! As far as a record label, I’d be all for it. I’d want nothing more than to do what I do for a living and be able to afford a bunch of modular synthesizers, a Pomeranian, colonics, and big, expensive sunglasses.

When can we expect the next album? What will it be called?

Probably around the end of summer. I got absorbed into the summer heat recently and want to play on that dimension. It’ll probably be called “Thisket’s Summer Revue” unless I end up making songs about Kool-Aid or feeling sorry for myself.

Is there anything you would like to add?

I hereby apologize for any damage I caused with this interview.

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ALBUMS

• The Golden Afternoon (CMR, 2006)
• DOWNLOAD

• Trytry (CMR, 2007)
• DOWNLOAD

LINKS

• Thisket
• Thisket MySpace
• Custom Music Records

I’m not sure why, but for some reason I studiously avoided Kompakt for years. Maybe the fact that everyone was on the bus made me a little skeptical. Gui Boratto of São Paulo, Brazil, has educated me considerably.

Over the course of two years, the man has released a dozen or so twelve inches on a number of German labels. They’re eating his stuff up over in Deutschland, and it’s no wonder. Listening to Chromophobia, you get the sense that this Boratto guy has been pumping out high-rez techno for a thousand years. It’s the textures — so crystalline and beautiful that for a moment you wonder if they just might be visible, tactile shapes flowing out of your speakers. You could dance to it, yeah, but for some reason an ounce of psilocybin and a good pair of cans seems more appropriate. Brilliant, in the sense that you may need sunglasses to hear this. “The Blessing”, with its creephouse bass and scattered hits that just might be a stack of books falling in an empty warehouse, is a standout track. But there’s much to appreciate here in the way of moods and melodies. It would be a shame to dismiss something like Chromophobia as “another house album” — this is some of the finest electronic music I’ve heard in a while.

• Gui Boratto
• Kompakt

The Dandelion Council, The Mysteries of Bioluminscence [AH004]

Archaic Horizon is a welcome new addition to the net label game. Since November 2006 they’ve been releasing quality albums and EPs at a feverish pace. The Mysteries of Bioluminscence, a mini-album (or EP if you like) by newcomer The Dandelion Council, is no exception. Between the mesmeric, fluid haze of its shifting ambient tones and the almost minimalistic quality of Mysteries‘ downtempo rhythms, the Council fully realizes the image found on the cover art: A sort of half-remembered day spent at the beach, quietly contemplating the tides. This is a highly successful debut, and I look forward to hearing more from Pip in the future.

Download

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Thisket, Trytry [CMR020]

Don’t be frightened by the man on the cover. Despite his preference for undersized, ponch-revealing jackets, Daniel L. Williams makes some of the finest acid in North America. Eschewing the modern software approach for a more traditional, sine-happy sound, Thisket creates enveloping, punchy, cascading analog tracks that will please even the most discriminating of Cornish goblins. Trytry is a worthy followup to last November’s pensive and beautiful The Golden Afternoon. Whereas that album was more of a sedate, haunted little foray into Thisket’s retro-futuristic aesthetic, this time around things are decidedly aggressive. Tracks like “7.AVL” sizzle and pop their way through a foreboding melodic backdrop, while others like “Floor” build with distorted, paranoiac intensity. For fans of the early Warp sound and acid techno in general, this is not to be missed.

Download

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Firnwald, The Secrets of Bardic Trickery [laridae032]

From cold and distant to uncomfortably close, Firnwald thoroughly mixes the signals on his fourth album, The Secrets of Bardic Trickery. It’s a bizarre, at times sinister travelogue through fragile ambient woodlands and smoking industrial ruins. Certainly not for the faint of heart, but brave listeners will be rewarded with tracks like the epic “Bergpfad” which meanders from the paranoid to the almost-but-not-quite peaceful. Firnwald is reluctant to allow the listener to relax completely, and every poorly lit passage seems to hide some new monster. Highly original and immaculately produced stuff.

Download

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Beak, Bishop Whitney EP [mtk.mp3.180]

While not as fancifully titled as his last, Amoral Mayor Earwig, this EP enlarges on Beak’s guitar-meets-laptop motives. This time the beats get even more frenetic, as on the crazy, skittering folktronix of “Context Clues” and “Bugg Ride”. Despite the playful, chaotic elements that creep in from the edges, Beak never loses sight of the melodic core of these pieces. The final track, “Essine’s Hair”, is my favorite of the bunch — a rolling, thumping, energetic little tune that features electric and acoustic guitar and, of course, the possibly ADD-induced electro-flotsam that I’ve come to associate with Mr. Beak. Well done.

Download

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