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CD Feature/ Shinkei & Philip Lemieux: "Binaural Beats+Reprocessing"

  Tobias

It is time to rethink our perception of the term microsound. On this Double-3’’ CD-R release, two artists not only offer two completely different visions on the genre, but also lead the term as such ad absurdum. Not bad for the debut release on Koyuki Sound, a new label focussed on what might well be the most extreme niche of the experimental music scene.

Not that either of the two presents us with anything one hasn’t heard before. Isolated blips and crackles and the stark contrast between ultrahigh frequencies and immensely powerful bass resonances are at the heart of Shinkei’s “Binaural Beats”, a work in four parts realised using brainwave synchronisation software. Comforting hiss and crisp smacking-sounds are added to the spectrum, as individual elements are gradually allowed to overlap and intersect, slowly increasing cohesion, while simultaneously going from concretion to abstraction and back again. As the subsonic waves ripple through your room, “Binaural Beats” turns into a down-scaled version of SUNN O))), which disturbs less on a metaphysical than on a perceptional level: How can these discreet sounds make your entire room vibrate?

Quiet scraping noises and drones are at the core of “Binaural Beats Reprocess”, for which Philip Lemieux has taken Shinkei’s miniatures and regrouped them into a coherent twenty-minute track. Of the originals, not much has survived, at least not in an immediately recognisable way. Lemieux concentrates on each sound with the meticulous dedication of a butterfly collector, forgetting about anything else in the process. Even though it might seem that “Reprocess”, with its epic narration style and seperated episodes was conceived as a grand design, it is a modest effort, which prefers balance above ambition. Still, the Hafler Trio’s meeting with Autechre on German label “Die Stadt” is never all that far away.

In both works, the subtle proportions, musical use of silence and the overall quiet level typical of microsound are essential ingredients. And yet, neither Shinkei nor Philip Lemieux are obviously interested in an analytical breakdown of our world into its atoms. Rather than pointing their microscope to ants and objects beyond eyesight, their method is less one of dissecting than of cleansing. “Binaural Beats” and “Binaural Beats Reprocess” present pure environments, in which the mind is presented with a reduced degree of complexity, instead of having to navigate through alien territory.

This lends both CDs a comforting air, void of any neurotic academic tendencies. I enjoyed this music while playing a deck of cards with my girlfriend and instead of violating our living room, it set up a space of focus and warmth. None of this sits well with the traditional view of the genre as overly rational. But there is nothing wrong with the Koyuki label confounding these expectations.

By Tobias Fischer

Homepage: Koyuki Sound Records