MOTION "EVERY ACTION" (12K1027)

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AUF ABWEGEN (DE)
Motion ist eines der eher romantischen Projekte auf 12k, da hier mit warmen Klangfarben und griffigen Akkorden gearbeitet wird, während der Restkatalog des kanasichen Labels nicht selten durch szientistische Kühle auffält. Motion entrückt die Hüorerschaft mit guten 60 Minuten Ambientmusik, die sich die Räume für ihre klanglichen Bewegungen selbst erschließt. Wie dicke Pinselstriche questchen sich die Töne in den Raum; in der Grundierung herrscht oft ein dichtes Bassraunen vor. Ein schönes und stringentes Album.

AUTRES DIRECTIONS (FR)
Ce second disque de Motion paraissant chez 12k a été composé au cours de ces 5 dernières années. Celui qui partagea en son temps un split Fat Cat avec Matmos produit une musique ambiante basée sur des drones (de guitare ?), des glitches et des bleeps. Une musique faite de micro sons, de détails informatiques, évanescente et quelque peu mélodique, qui sied parfaitement au label 12K. Sans doute un peu trop... Si je ne connais pas les deux précédents albums du bonhomme (de son vrai nom Chris Coode, publiant également sous le pseudonyme de Reckon), sa musique pointilliste joue en terrain balisé. Motion n’en est pas moins un excellent sound designer qui met en branle des structures agréables, légères et un peu étonnantes, où des textures et des notes s’agencent en de délicates architectures sonores, mais n’a pas cette dynamique (dommage, quand on s’appelle Motion) et ce sens des arrangements qui rend les travaux de Taylor Deupree ou de Sogar, par exemple, si vertigineux. Every Action demeure un disque foncièrement délicieux, idéal en ces premiers beaux jours.

BLOW UP (IT)
Dopo la parentesi Recon (vedi recensione sul numero scorso), Chris Coode torna alla consueta sigla Motion ed esattamente li dove l'avevamo lasciato, ovvero quel formidablile album denominator "Dust." E predendo le mosse dalle polveri (zzazioni) del precedente, il nuovo capitolo su 12k è forse ancor più interessante sotto questo profilo. Elementi casuali e colatili, a mo'di lente formazioni cumuliformi sospese alte sopra la testa, istantanee perennemente sgranate e fuori fuoco, una musica evaporata e gentilmente dondolante come la benefica vibrazione di un massaggio, malinconica ambient-glitch dia grandi spazi (di riflessione) nei quali lasciarsi annegare senza opporre resistenza. (8/9)

ETHEREAL (FR)
Troisième album de Motion, son second sur 12k, Every Action s’inscrit parfaitement dans la ligne habituellement défendue par le label de Taylor Deupree: minimalisme des nappes, discrétion des glitchs et travail sur les textures.

Travaillant à partir de petits larsens, infimes grésillements et
autres éléments micro-électroniques, Chris Coode met en place des morceaux à l’ascétisme peut-être un peu trop marqué mais qui font preuve d’une capacité indéniable à maîtriser le genre, surtout quand il choisit de densifier davantage ses morceaux en incorporant plusieurs éléments dans la structure d’arrière-plan. De même, quand une dimension mélodique intervient, l’ensemble semble prendre réellement corps (Miles Away). Utilisant très souvent, comme processus de composition, la mise en boucle
des éléments employés, Motion a, à cet égard, du mal à dépasser le stade de la répétition appliquée et à objectif hypnotique. Par ailleurs, quand il choisit de se concentrer sur des sonorités suraiguës, le musicien anglais n’arrive pas à proposer autre chose qu’un traditionnel agrégat de larsens pointus, notes tenues quasi-stridentes et tapotements réguliers.

Certes, en écoutant un disque 12k, on sait à quoi s’attendre et cet album de Motion a, encore une fois, complètement sa place sur le label new-yorkais, défenseur ardent de ce type d’electronica minimaliste ; néanmoins, on aurait aimé y trouver davantage de remise en question et une production qui se départisse un peu plus de ce que l’on a l’habitude d’entendre sur ce label.

GO MAG (ES)
Siempre en equilibrio sobre el doble filo minimalista, la producción de 12k explora las dos caras de la electrónica de mínimos: la composición afilada y gélida del glich y su vertiente más cálida y orgánica. Every Action, el tercer trabajo del británico Chris Coode, se inscribe de lieno en lo segundo. Repleto de cautivadoras disonancias, el universo auditivo de Motion se expande a ritmo pausado, deteniéndose un instante antes de que cualquier accidente sonoro irrumpa en los apacibles y burbujeantes paisajes electrónicos que Coode construye con los sonido residuales que se acumulan al pasar los samples de una generación a otra y así sucesivamente. Desgastado a través de este proceso, el error digital suena aquí acolchado, sin estridencias, como si el sonido se desplazara bajo el agua y perdiera su consistencia sólida inicial. Un must-have para seguidores del sello de Deupree y amantes de la electrónica menos obvia. - Amau Horta

KATHODIK.IT (IT)
Giocato quasi interamente su stratificazioni tonali e disfunzioni architettoniche è il secondo disco, sempre su 12K, di Chris Coode nei panni di Motion. Trattasi di materiale elaborato tra il 1999 e il 2004, dove l’inglese assembla campioni di varia natura poi processati secondo l’umore del momento. Un alternarsi di suoni organici, di rumori e di pulsazioni che collassano, informazioni che si susseguono apparentemente senza soluzione di continuità e che creano un feel notturno e onirico da percorrere in un tunnel di atmosfere cangianti. Musica questa che, pur non avendo una presa immediata, riesce ad intrigare quanto basta per incoraggiare ad immergersi in ripetuti e riavvicinati ascolti, alla scoperta di inaspettati tesori emozionali.

MUSIC CLUB (IT)
Giocato quasi interamente su stratificazioni tonali e disfunzioni architettoniche è il secondo disco, sempre su 12K, di Chris Coode nei panni di Motion. Trattasi di materiale elaborato tra il 1999 e il 2004, dove l’inglese assembla campioni di varia natura poi processati secondo l’umore del momento. Un alternarsi di suoni organici, di rumori e di pulsazioni che collassano, informazioni che si susseguono apparentemente senza soluzione di continuità e che creano un feel notturno e onirico da percorrere in un tunnel di atmosfere cangianti. Musica questa che, pur non avendo una presa immediata, riesce ad intrigare quanto basta per incoraggiare ad immergersi in ripetuti e riavvicinati ascolti, alla scoperta di inaspettati tesori emozionali.

MUSIQUE MACHINE (BE)
Every Action is the third full-length by Chris Coode's Motion. It's also the second for 12k, the American label of minimal electronic music. Motion's spiritual home…

If you had to let someone know about 12k, you would probably give him this CD, since it epitomizes the label so much. Which is, in a way, a problem: why would I listen to this album among all the other 12k albums? Good question, to which I don't really have an answer, except that if you like 12k, you will like this album. Good point, eh?

And if you don't know the label? Well, nevermind, it's not the best starting point, but it's still a good one. Drones, microsounds, clicks-and-cuts, glitches, make for a very melodic ambient music. I say ambient, and like good ambient music, Every action is not monotonous. It has a dynamics as well as a wide variety of sounds.

However digital the music -and the process leading to it- is, there is still something natural, organic about it. This one of the nice development of digital music over the last few years: people were saying it was music for a world full of machines, and some people, Coode being one of them, are here to remind us that it can also be music for a world full of insects. A world of green landscape where a gentle wind blows, scattering leaves and seeds, creating life in an endless flow.

All this is very positive, but I can't help noticing: I speak more about a musical genre than about a particular artist. Coode is fantastic at what he does, but he is no master: masters evolve and make things move forward. Coode doesn't. Still an excellent album, for early summer. 5/6

François Monti

PHOSPHOR (DE)
It was the end of the nineties when Motion released a split EP with Matmos on Fat Cat Records and an album entitled Pictures, offering a tonal and melodic content. Motion, being London-based Chris Coode continued to develop his sound after this debut release on his own imprint. This development between 1999 and now can be found on Motion's third full-length release on one of the most interesting microsound labels worldwide, Taylor Dupree's 12K. Coode crafts his sound by sampling, processing, resampling, reprocessing back and forth, slightly changing the track during each step. This explains for the tiny details interwoven in the music, lovely hiss in the background and miniscule ticks in between melodic flickering. Coode plays with his small pieces around. Several tracks have been built upon sharp sounds that prick like needles, or microsound clicks, whereas other pieces feature gliding or sudden shifts of music. This means that Chris Coode's music appears very dynamic and rich in detail. Though warm
melodies, a handful of droning and barely-changing tones can be found on this release as well. As of the eighth track entitled Lazy audio, things change slightly. The music starts to have the effects of ping-pong balls, the refined and skittering textures have disappeared to give way to more atmospheric and slightly rougher sound experiments. These grainy timestretches can be considered just as interesting, giving Every action an extra dimension. Another lovely release in the excellent 12K series.

RIF RAF (BE)
Dan heb je net die superdeluxe peperdure hoofdtelefoon gekocht, zitten er toch geen platen in je collectie die je ten volle het genot van je nieuwe speeltje kunnen garanderen! fear not: de Briste elektronicamaker Chris Coode heeft net de opvolger van zijn gelauwerde debuut Dust uit en het is er pal op. Coode loodst de luisteraar behoedzaam door zijn audiowereld, van track tot track, van crackle tot click, van drone naar glitch. Voel hoe deze elektronica je oorschelp binnendruppelt en je hersens prikkelt. Crème de la crème.

ROCKERILLA (IT)
Chris Coode ha voluto giocare d'azzardo nel suo terzo "Every Action." La posta in palio: la possibilità di dimostrare le proprie capacità, in un prodotto che può e deve distinguersi. La strategia è chiara: recuperare le stesse idee, pensate e ragionate ormai lo scorso millennio, cercando di elaborarle in una riflessione attuale. Ecco il perché di Motion, il motivo di orgoglio del giovane musicista, il biglietto da visita di questo innovatore. Come tali, le idee di questo disco sono produndamente legate al passato, a un momento in cui l'elettronica era una tendenza appannagio esclusivo di pochi espresionisti. Ma è la rappresentazione di queste idee che fa la differenza, per la sua attualità e per la sua fantasia - quella di "Moog Edit", "Funkturm", "Lazy Audio," che snatura la progressione di qualche accordo suonato con la tastiera, in un richiamo per un altro pianeta. Gradita sorpresa.

STYLUS (US)
Every Action is the second 12k release by the UK-based artist Chris Coode, who goes by the name Motion. In my review of his previous release, Dust, I note that the album focuses "on creating a natural world out of digital scraps". The work is, I said, suffused with digital scraps that have been pruned and caressed into fully realized soundscapes that suggested an imaginary nature, one that can never actually exist. In short, I really liked that album, and I looked forward to the follow-up.

However, at first, Every Action is a disappointment. The first five tracks—from "Untitled" to "Moken Edit"—remind me too much of the same crinkly, imaginary insect sounds found on that previous effort and on a whole host of 12k releases in the intervening years. These songs possess some memorable moments—the digital wine glass burps on "Funkturm" or the radio tuning melody in "Alt X"—but the tracks, as a whole, leave me bored.

Those five tracks make up about fifteen minutes of this 48-minute album. Luckily, however, the other 33 minutes are more interesting—and more fun. "Lookback Layback" starts out as a fragmented, bouncing bass line that falls apart and merges with soft melodies and static and glitches and waves of noise. It's an impressive work, especially because it's so wonderfully insane, yet so wonderfully organized at the same time. Then there's "Move/Still: AV Edit", which sounds like a backwards version of a track from Dust mixed with a smattering of warm, warbling tones. "Lazy Audio" sounds like a drunken Fennesz track (and that's a good thing). "Making Spaces" sounds like a collection of samples from Forbidden Planet mixed together and ground into coffee; there's an alien landscape feel (with echoing plops and bleeps), but the sounds all bounce around and morph into static and otherwise make me want to stand up and scream. "Miles Away" is a slow, melodic work that uses digitally enhanced guitar sounds (backed with lumpy, croaking frogs and hissing snakes and abusive ants) to create the impression of a rather nasty garden.

What do these songs all have in common—and how do they differ from the first few songs on this album? They're more creative, for one thing. They also rely on more novel sounds—sounds that I don't recall hearing on previous Motion works or even on works by other electronic artists. But the real key is their sense of play. They don't follow any proscribed framework; they emerge as organic blobs that can take any shape or form that the listener might desire. I hear an evil garden in "Miles Away" because Coode manages to create enough bouncing, irreverent noises and mesh them together in such a way that it sounds (to me) like a chaotic, unpredictable garden.

Coode's music is a process, a collaboration between artist and audience. Coode supplies the raw materials; the audience supplies the ears and the imagination. The first few songs don't work because both the sounds and the music's shape have already been drawn up, broken down, and organized so thoroughly that there's little left for the listener to do but sit, listen and be bored. The rest of the album, by contrast, is so filled with weird, irreverent, and twisted noises that all listeners have to do is pay attention for a little while, and tiny, magical universes will open up before them. If only all music were like the good parts of Every Action.

VITAL WEEKLY (NL)
This is the third album by Chris Coode, aka Motion (who is also Reckon, with slightly different music at his hand). Motion is the perfect example, I think, of a man armed with a laptop producing finely tuned ambient glitch music. In each of the twelve tracks (the thirteenth being a remix by The Deletist) he combines the smallest sound particles, grainy, time-stretched samples that form some sort of small drone (string is a better word) and the repeated action of small residues of all of this (some would call that a loop) into twelve nicely floating pieces of music. So far so good, one says? Yes, so far so good. If this would have been my first encounter with this kind of music, say coming from an interest in ambient music, I'd be delighted. But I know Motion's previous two albums plus I heard similar stuff before, and this makes it hard for me to be very enthusiastic about this album. After all it's well-known musical path Motion is walking along. It has no doubt that he is a master at what he does, but I think time has come to reflect on the genre and move forward (or backward, or sideways) and expand on the sound (or limit) and make some sort of progress. If ambient glitch music is a new alienated word, then I'm sure Every Action can serve as a fine introduction, otherwise it may be a good idea to check it out first and see if it makes a profound change for you. (FdW)