(ANGBASE 6)

[N:Q]

This is one 58-minute track by Keith Rowe of the British ensemble AMM and three French musicians (Jean Chevalier, Christophe Harvard, and Julien Ottavi) working with electronics, prepared guitar, objects, percussion, reeds, and voice. It seems to be an exercise in structure, in this case arraying sound so that the density and volume follow a probability distribution function. It starts extremely softly, builds slowly to a high point somewhere past the midpoint of the disc, where the sound space is filled with a barrage of sax squeakings and electronic gruntings and twitterings worthy of a barnyard afflicted with the European Community farm disease of the month. From there the sound makes a gradual decline that mirrors the increase in the first half of the disc. Through the last four minutes of the disc there is a constant and extreme reduction in the variety, length, volume, and frequency of sounds. When I first listened to the disc, the beginning and the end blended into the ambient noise of the room I was in, reminding me of the infinite regression towards zero that is part of a probability distribution. Hearing this structure build over 58 minutes and the sounds themselves are moderately interesting. (David Maddox) carlos m. pozo