Review of Frame [12k1011]

Faqt (US)

I cannot get enough of Dan Abrams’ work as Shuttle358. His warm ambient glitchworks flow around your head, between your ears, and insinuates themselves into your entire body – the aural equivalent of a warm bath. On Frame, the follow-up to his 1999 debut Optimal.lp, Abrams continues his journey into a very personal-sounding realm of experimental electronica, one that speaks an amazing vocabulary of emotion.

The title track, which leads off the album, is centered on endless depths of swelling soft-focus drones, polyrhythmic glitch percussion, and a synth melody that has been filtered to a near-subliminal level. This sets the standard for the remaining tracks on Frame, but each are done with such subtlety and attention to detail, it’s easy to distinguish one track from the next. “Lyndon Tree” sounds like a stack of carbonated electric pianos, bubbling and ringing together in perfect fizzy harmony; the less-than-drifting “Calty” is the bastard child of Eno’s ambient and the shy, pale rhythms of Mouse On Mars. Not quite minimalism, ambient, or clicks’n’cuts flavor-of-the-month, Abrams’ Shuttle358 sings with a beautifully original electronic voice that is both timely and timeless.

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