derision, mockery & ridicule might equate with scorn, but last
year's full length recording 'evanescence' was hailed as an indispensable
non-temporary accomplishment. an album in keeping with this decade's
macabre fascinations & exploring the darker terrain of the post-ambient
map. mick harris & nick bullen have now collated a richly expressive
assembly of revisions & reinterpretations. the incredible itinerary of
'ellipsis' includes meat beat manifesto, coil, bill laswell, autechre,
scanner, pcm, germ & scorn themselves, whose revocation of 'exodus' is
loaded with latent menace. whatever qualms people might possess in relation
to dark ambience, the practitioners of this black art are weaving complex
spells of audio ingenuity. in two parts, looping film scores, coil, the
black suns of industrial records build immense aurascapes into 'shadow vs.
executioner'. laswell's horrifying nocturnal immersion into 'night ash
black' has to be heard to be believed. autechre's whirlpooling automation
catches 'falling' within interlocking textures of hyperkinetic narratives.
a sequence of gradient tones interlaced with shuttling percussion &
trademark conversational fragments are combined in scanner's 'flaneur
electronique' mix of 'night tide'. an initial passivity dilutes into
complex percussion with germ's intricate introspective approach to
'automata', endlessly reforming to provoke one of the boldest tracks on the
album. if ever there was a sound that marks the present moment, the
triumphs of this album bear witness that this is it.
desmond k. hill
e-mail: des@anubis23.demon.co.uk