Information networks and telecommunication prosthetics cajole and browbeat everyone into participating, into interacting, communicating, not here but everywhere. Rather than acting as the sponge that finally soaks up all droplets of alienation, though, these networks further it, albeit in different forms. Such is the basic theme around which On Isolation pivots prudently.
After its assemblage, the disc was distributed to delegates frequenting the University of Tasmania for a conference on possible remedies to dominant discourses of Globalism and seamless connectivity. It provided ample food for thought, of that there seems little question. A bevy of notable figures, from Dale Lloyd to Janek Schaefer, Sebastien Roux, and Stephen Vitiello, make up those who responded to the call from writer, sound artist, and Room40 manager Lawrence English. The ensuing works display varied and tactile textures, with a flow of ideas so impressively relentless that a certain ease about the capabilities of the music is evident. Zane Trow presents a glutinous amniotic fluid of noise that seethes and spits; David Toop shows starker, more static forms, consisting of industrial scribbling and clattering that eventually gather momentum like detritus caught up in a whirlwind; Chartier works with infinitesimal degrees of rhythmic displacement; while, in an act of some sensitivity, Schaefer offers a luminous drone, replacing the peripheral digital disturbances with distant echoes and indistinct, elysian shimmers.
The tension and ambiguity of these musical interfaces is well established - the roughness of its surfaces complements rather than compromises its soft centre. Not everything succeeds - a few tracks, such as that given by Fennesz, never manage to get off the ground - but running throughout the album is a subtle, hypnotic, and seductive aura that maintains a special blending of concept and luxuriance. The heavy processing of the source sounds creates a sense of delocalization, a short-circuit between cause and effect, action and reaction, while the thudding, repetitive intensity of the unfettered field recordings reveals a curiously musical timbre in their voice. In canvassing matters of solitude that arise from interactivity and ceaseless information flows, On Isolation offers not only a commentary, but a sharp body and spirit to these issues - on its own, it is a lively and serious engagement with the power, color, and nuance of sound.
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