Reviews

Stylus

The bizarrely terrifying and yet still quite cute cover art is a pretty good indication of the electronic oddness housed within the Switches compilation; there’s enough glitch, drone, pulse, beat, melody and digital disarray to send you delirious with weird, should you wish. The artists brought together here span the Atlantic from Portland to Sheffield via Toronto, LA and Wisconsin before stretching further afield to Europe and Rennes, but they all have one thing in common: a degree of cybernetic humanism that elevates Switches way above most of the ‘experimental’ electronic dross that tumbles through my letterbox. Absent, present, eerie and charming all, this is very, very good.

Link to original review > HERE

Counter Culture

Musical experimentation is a dodgy territory to stray on to sometimes. Unless the end result has some positive point, the whole thing can quite easily end up sounding like it was made by a bunch of kids set free in a kitchen - and before you say anything, if as an artiste, this is your concept, you really ought to get out more because there is a big difference between what is music and creation, and just random noise.

So what is this latest sampler from Audiobulb - creation or noise? Well, it is the incarnation of the label's philosophy centred on "embracing uncertainty, flexibility and creative risk taking." If that sounds more than a little pretentious, don't you think it is a better way of approaching art than 'maximising profitability through creative control of commercially viable product'? You can't dance to these 14 'soundscapes' (a cliché, but it works). I doubt if any of the contributors will shift many units. You certainly won't hear them on commercial radio. But what you can do is listen and allow your thoughts to wander in and out of the worlds they suggest. True this is not for everyone - many people are not comfortable with their own thoughts - but for those that do allow themselves the pleasure of drifting in time and space, in short, this album works a treat.

By and large the tracks are instrumental, the occasional human voice being a carefully selected sampled sound rather than anything bespoke to the piece. Organic instruments mix harmoniously with the predominant electronics. Beats come and go, mirroring the peaks and troughs of the beloved sine wave. The mood swings between the positive and the positively dark, but all the while the unexpected lurks. Not that there are any sudden volleys of sound to break the low-key feel, but as with most experimental efforts, you never really know what you've got until it has passed. For this reason, a feeling of slight tension exists within the album, not enough to destroy the more relaxing, alpha-wave moments, but it lurks nonetheless.

There are hints of Aphex Twin, Boards Of Canada, Autechre - you know the kind of territory - at the most easily digestible points. But then there are strange and beautiful moments too. Stripped down, minimalist sounds vie with dislocated voices, while riveting silences create something from nothing. A less discerning listener might argue that it never really gets going, but that misses the point. It's another cliché, but less is more sometimes. And this album has next to nothing at certain points. Can you handle that?

It's up to you how you deal with this sort music of course. You could just as easily reject it as pointless electronic bimbling as cite it as a work of art. Whatever you do, it seems Audiobulb have worked hard to locate some of the more esoteric creative talents out there, and they must be applauded for their bravery in putting this stuff out. Tom Alford.

Link to original review > HERE

Future Music

It’s a label like Audiobulb who could produce the next Autechre. Some of the atmospheres here are superb – they clearly have an ear for it. He Can Jog and Diagram Of Suburban Chaos pull off the magical feat of producing enjoyable yet experimental tracks.

Igloo Magazine

Quite possibly with the help of the website design and previous cover art, I always envisioned the music released on Audiobulb to be composed by robotic insects: intricately built, crunchy, and considered to be a delicacy in many parts of the world. Although the first “Mpfree” release, Exhibition #1, wasn’t anything that got me too excited, the second installment, Exhibition #2, won me over immediately and received heavy rotation on my computer [then later my CD player when I had to burn it so I could listen to it on the go] for months. This time around, Audiobulb has a released a proper 14-track compilation CD entitled Switches.

Switches picks up where Exhibition #2 left off, but while the overall aesthetic hasn’t changed much, it certainly doesn’t feel like a sequel. Still filled with enough glitch to make a skipping CD jealous, this release breathes a bit more organic life into the music. Old favorites are still abound with Bllix, Diagram Of Suburban Chaos, He Can Jog, Prhizzm, and Effacer all making contributions again, but the synth pads all sound a little warmer, the beats a little brisker, and the ambiences a little more colorful. With so many sub-genres of IDM, clicks and cuts, glitch, ambio-drone, and lapfolktronica, I have no idea what exact categorization this compilation would be filed under. In fact, I have to admit that I don’t listen to much music that I would consider to be similar to this at all. However, if Audiobulb continues to raise the bar of their future releases as much as they have for their past three, there won’t be much need to look elsewhere.

Some tracks like Disastrato’s “C(ch)oaipba, Koa, C(ch)(S+am)” are collections of extremely minimal blips and scratches so sparse they blend in with the drone of the refrigerator in the next room and the traffic outside till you forget that your apartment isn’t truly part of the performance, though it works nicely. Others like Rodolphe Küffer’s “Content” and Build’s “A Development- with a grid of streets and a shopping center heart” are nice little jams of tightly structured, yet elegant electric beats. A particular favorite is the unassuming “Singalong Tammy” by Marion. Simple, searching guitar lines are padded with contrapuntal tones and guided by the rare IDM beat that isn’t a VST fanfare –Sincere and effective.

This album could be a transitional point for Audiobulb- stay the course or use it as a departure into other sounds and ideas. While it was a natural progression from Exhibition #2 to Switches the expansion could lead to so many different paths and styles. I think it would be interesting to see what else Audiobulb has in store, but if they stayed close to their current form it would in no way be a loss. However if you want to classify what Audiobulb does, they are doing it just as well (if not better) than anyone else out there.

Link to original review > HERE

XLR8R

If you made a daisy chain out of the bedroom producers currently making Plaid- and Boards of Canada-influenced IDM, it would stretch around the earth 12 times. Switches curates 14 such unsung heroes into a quiet exhibition that will perfectly suit fans of tonal sculpture and melancholic clicks 'n' cuts. Switches doesn't quite equal the genius of, say, Aphex Twin's Selected Ambient Works Part 2, but among picaresque tracks from New York's Build, Wisconsin's He Can Jog and London's OTI, there may be a future star in the making. Tyra Banqt.

Vital Weekly

It's not an uncommon thing for a new label to start with, and here Audiobulb is no different. While researching information on the net on sound design and the like, label owner David Newman met a whole bunch of musicians and then had the idea to do this compilation with all these young people and present them a bigger audience. He did basically a good research, since I never heard of any of the people on this compilation (but in my defence I must say that I don't browse the net for music so much). This compilation sums up everything Audiobulb stands for, which is what they describe as 'glitch and groove, IDM, environmental ambience, microsounds and idiosyncratic dance beats'. Although the CD starts out with the latter and some IDM, the majority of artists here operate in an ambient music setting, where rhythms do play their part, but where the bigger thing is set to create a more relaxing environment. Some of these tracks, like the one from Marion could have been on 'From Here To Tranquility', Silent Records' series of ambient music compilations of a decade ago. In that respect I don't think this compilation brings any new and innovative artists, but rather offers fourteen nice tracks of chill out music. Perfect for mornings, reading news papers and all that. Nice indeed, not shocking, ok and no big surprises. (FdW)

Link to original review > HERE

DJ Mag

Some of the obscure artists on here display some serious talent. The ambient lushness of OTI's 'Large Open Spaces' evokes just that, an immense vista of echoing synthetic melody reminiscent of Warp's 'Artificial Intelligence' series.

The Milk Factory

Bllix presents with Document.Write a true moment of classic electronica, evocative of Boards Of Canada or Christ. Diagram Of Suburban Chaos, aka William Snavely, evolves in similar spheres, with beautifully-laid warm analogue sounds wrapped over gentle glitches and carefully structure beat sequences.

Musical Bear / Spannered

Switches is the fourth release on Audiobulb, a new Sheffield-based electronica label. David Newman, Audiobulb's proprietor, met the artists whose work is included on this compilation through internet newsgroups. The three previous releases on his label are available free to download as mp3s from the label website.

From the opening phft-clong to the closing cler-er-rk-chong, there are few surprises in this compilation. It's just another CD of winsome, glitchy electronica, hardly straying from the current IDM idiom. As is often the case with such stuff, almost solipsistic pathos stands in for genuine soul or emotion wistful, cinematic soundscapes are juxtaposed with rhythmically arranged noise. However, if you are attentive enough, there are and handful of captivating, even beautiful, moments. Composed largely of dazzling field recordings, Oti's Large Open Spaces is a breath of fresh air, worth the price of the CD alone. Effacer's Fire At Sea swells and ebbs with complex rhythms composed of rhodes and clicking switches all fed through an echo unit.

The concept behind this compilation is that each track is a switch that modifies the listener's experience by introducing new sonic elements. In practice this idea is completely undermined by the surprising homogeneity of the music. Stylistically speaking, despite all the talk about being exploratory, little new territory has been mapped by any of the artists. If this were an expedition then it would be one of easily distracted toddlers, more interested in playing in the grass than reaching their destination.

In the final analysis, despite underlying flaws with this compilation it is still worthy of your attention. In purely sonic terms the CD is impressive, and the artists are all highly accomplished, and to that extent they should be commended. In keeping with its obscurity, I'll give it ? out of 5.

Link to original review > HERE

In Other Words

RODOLPHE KUFFER - Content: Dissects his audio – breaking down elements and building them up into a glitch groove – the track dissolves at its end point into a beautiful human voice.

HE CAN JOG - June – that is when the smaller sparrow began to cantilate: A beautiful ambient introduction sails into the sky with micro percussion – suddenly an explosion of delicately drilled up drums take the track on a powered flight.

MARION - Singalong tammy: Plucked Elizabethan strings and glitched beats are perfectly executed within this pretty electro-acoustic number

CLAUDIA - We lost him, but kept going: A sense of brain damage and disconnectedness are woven amongst melodies reminiscent of the Boards of Canada.

DISASTRATO - C(ch)oaipba, koa, c(ch) (s+am): Tiny switches and dials are turned with percussive guile in this microsound masterpiece. Disastrato introduces accidental monsters – an autistic child cries and blows his nose into an audio soundscape that reverberates into infinity.

OTI - Large open spaces: An ambient midpoint with sounds of a summer environment woven into gentle melodies whilst children play.

BLLIX - Document.write: Beautifully programmed IDM executed via Bllix’s female intuition – skittery rhythms play around the stereo spectrum as the melody unwinds, wrapping itself around the listener.

DIAGRAM OF SUBURBAN CHAOS - Wishing a disease: With an acclaimed album (status negatives on imputer records) already behind him William Snavely illustrates his poignant skills through reforming idiosyncratic rhythms placed behind a delicate time shifting melody.

HENRY LEO DUCLOS - Ever since: Painstaking composition devised from glitched-up audio events manipulated and arranged on an old PC.

AUTISTICI - Breath holding on to a window: Ambience and percussive microsounds combine to deliver an extremely atmospheric account with a strong visual identity.

BUILD - A development with a grid of streets and a shopping centre heart: Extremely delicate and detailed rhythmic programming shimmer across this track beneath an enchanting stripped back melody.

PRHIZZM - Half asleep: Crunchy beats and detuned arpeggios surge across this track. The tempo decreases to expose the inner working of the composition before again awaking into motion.

ROOM - Your open face: Appealing chord structures and melodies are presented in this track that develops via a glitchy beat and bass groove.  

EFFACER - Fire at sea: An ambient end piece with tilting tones and an accomplished exploration of Asian percussive elements.

ElectroMeda

Every examined entity contributes to quality of compilation with it’s superb skill. Whether it is IDM, ambient, or a collection of microsounds, it simply fits perfectly as part of superb mechanism: you see Disastrato construct bionic insects in his ‘song’ of complicated name, or Claudia in far, dark corner whimpering in his morbidly gripping track.