Review of Stil. [12k1020]

Boston’s Weekly Dig (US)

In many respects, microsound as a genre often appears to be the locked steel box of electronic music – all impenetrably smooth surfaces and imposingly sharp angles. Indeed, the obsessively precise sound-sculpture so essential to the genre and its ultra-spare musical structures can, upon occasion, make for music that is as dry and engaging as digital dust. Happily, Brooklyn’s Taylor Deupree, who is a microsound pioneer of sorts, is an exception to this, producing work that possesses a sense of narrative flow and drama all too often lacking in this most ascetic form of post-techno. Stil., Deupree’s latest relase on 12k, is one of his finest efforts thus far. It is also certainly his most rigorously spare release, as he employs a minimal number of sounds and rhythmic structures to maximum effect. The tension that he is able to create on a piece like “Snow/Sand” or “Temper,” for instance, using only a small arsenal of delicately crafted and carefully deployed hums, pings and pops is quite breathtaking. An excellent example of less as more. – Susanna Bolle

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