16 December 2010

Jodi Cave - for myria (2007, 12k)

Debut album on 12k for Jodi Cave, a UK sound artist coming from a small town near Sheffield.  Minimalist but not austere, “For Myria” is like a collection of pencil drawings on a blank sheet. 

Handwritten words or sketches you invited to interpret or decode. Textures seem to be more important than narration. The use of microscopic sounds with a natural interface is a kind of continuum – an Arian's thread - on “For Myria”, much more than episodic atmospheric layers.

I'm not sure about how much this album sounds finished. In fact, for me, two tracks stand really above the rest, both are between seven and eight minutes : “Untitled” and “For Sine an Breath Tones”.

“Untitled” is like a long walk in heavy fog, through a forest with frost covered trees. It's the purity of silence with ice and wood creaking type of sounds and drone layers of vibrating synth sounds in the background. The effect is readily hypnotic. “For Sine an Breath Tones” is introspective with a nostalgic quality, you're lost in the contemplation of a bleak winter landscape.

Except the aforementioned tracks, “For Myria” leaves an impression of randomness, everything seems without structure, almost stationary, without much variation. Listening to this album is sometimes like contemplating a nude wall, looking at the asperities thinking of photons as sources of perception between imperceptible shades and variations of colors. I find it difficult to relate to most of this production. It happens, it is developed, it exists into a volume but doesn't reach of activate my memory and my imagination. Jodi Cave is often much more an abstract sculptor than a conventional musician as the passing of time seems strangely absent here.

I'm very curious about what he will explore from here. I feel concerned only by a small part of “For Myria” but enough to be intrigued and expecting something more engaged and interpretable.
http://www.12k.com/

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