"Field recordings with a difference, a two-disc set, one given over to each musician. La Casa alternates two short tracks (less than two minutes) assembled from radio transmissions in the first case, with lengthier ones sculpted from urban/industrial parts of Le Havre and Liege. And "sculpted" is the word that comes to mind. Sometimes with a (welcome) axe. I talked with La Casa recently (he literally lives around the corner from me in Paris) and, among many other things, we spoke of the well-documented difficulties I have with trying to make qualitative judgments on field recordings (not to mention other stuff!), a matter he agrees with. In a recording like this one, part of the "solution" is the sheer plasticity of the sound, the very moldedness of it. But also, of course, the choices made and the resultant disjointed narrative aspect that obtains. It's determinedly man-made but with the kind of eerie resonances that are unexpected consequences of human activity, including a booming interior hollowness in otherwise varying spaces. The listener is very much carried along here, hurtling often, the drastic changes in dynamics causing one's "aural stomach" (!) to drop. The ferocity and quasi-mancing presence in the first long track is mitigated somewhat in the second, a greater concern shown for various textures sliding across one another, accompanied at moments by wonderful, ultra-low booms, muffled but powerful. I was absolutely absorbed by it. I may not be able to quantify it, but when it comes to field recording, this is what I'm talkin' about.

The Peyronnet disc is something rather different. While it may have been constructed from the same source material (it was recorded in the same two cities, in the same year), Peyronnet seems to process the sounds more overtly than La Casa. The first two tracks, each about ten minutes long, are ok though they sound more or less like slightly less effective versions of those found on Disc One. But on the last track, Peyronnet lurches at right angles to his material, creating a vast, sighing drone that reams our space for six or seven minutes before expiring, leaving behind a empty, nighttime landscape in which you can discern soft footsteps and gently lapping water. Quite lovely. Matters settle down into an interesting kind of nondescript area, general sounds in a large space, maybe outside, machine engines and associated clatter leading to what sounds for all the world like a drumroll (I take it that it's not) shattering into soft rubble. A strange, otherwordly and very enjoyable piece.

A fine set, then, definitely worth checking out."-Brian Olewnick, Just Outside