HEADPHONE COMMUTE

 Early Works, as the title suggests, is a collection of previously unreleased compositions recorded by David 
 Newman  within the last decade. This is a rasterized array of sounds, bleeps, clicks, and field recordings, ala 
 musique concrète digitalis. The first volume, subtitled Detached Metal Voice, is a selection of early works 
 “exploring the anxiety of disconnected elements striving to find connection in a world of digital  communication.” 
 These are experimental pieces with many exploratory techniques and tools, like sinewave oscillators, home-
 made tone generators, and works with ASY, a synthesizer based on vocal tract models developed at Bell 
 Laboratories in the 60s. Be sure to check out Whispering Mongo Man, featuring an audio interview with John 
 Lennon, composed entirely out of edited-out speech, leaving behind the space occupied by his breath. “The 
 tracks encourage the listener to consider the complex question of how meaning, relationships and connections 
 are constructed, communicated and perceived.".
        

 BOOMKAT

 Featuring rare early works and previously unreleased tracks, Detached Metal Voice showcases some of 
 Autistici's most experimental material, exploring electroacoustic dissections of what might once have been 
 classical music ('Morphine (Detail)'), cut-up voices and odd sound poetry ('Babyman'), plus digitally mutated jazz
 ('Colonic People'). One of the weirdest entries has to be 'Whispering Mongo Man', which takes audio from a John
 Lennon interview, only to erase all the words, leaving just the residual sounds left by his breathing. Intriguing 
 stuff throughout, and all very different from the 12k release Volume Objects, for which Autistici is probably best 
 known.

 THE MILK FACTORY

 It’s barely been a few months since Autistici’s second album, Complex Tone Test, was released, yet here 
 comes another collection of fine electronic music from David Newman, published on his excellent Audiobulb 
 imprint. This time though, the album collates early recordings and brings a variety of experiments under one 
 umbrella. No indication is given to when these tracks were recorded, but they are linked by a taste for retro-
 futuristic technologies, especially early voice synthesis experiments developed in the sixties and seventies in 
 the US by the Bell Laboratories, an AT&T research site based in New Jersey, and old style electronic 
 instrumentation.  

 The album draws influences from far beyond the electronica realm, occasionally hinting at classical or jazz 
 forms, yet the result is predominantly electronic and textural in aspect, using a vast array of glitches and sonic
 interferences at the core of each piece. This defines the record right from the opening track, On A Beach Of 
 Pure Data, which kicks off with a constant discharge of electricity before getting into a mechanical groove, and 
 continues to cast a shadow throughout the record. Things become a tad warmer on Colonic People thanks to 
 a particularly effective jazz groove, nicely finished by sporadic lashes of rounded double bass, but the track 
 is drowned in toxic layers of noise and reverb towards the end, and things are back to harsh metallic rhythmic 
 patterns, sometimes tainted with ominous strips of ambient soundscapes (It Contains A Diagnosis, Beneath) at
 others left bare and dry (Ligaments, BlaK BloK). 

 On Babyman, Newman puts very human and real interactions and emotions into the imaginary mouths of 
 computers to create a rather disturbing dystopian tale. Do robots dream of electric sheep? Who knows, but in
 the hands of Newman, computers seem capable of some sentiments, synthetic or otherwise. On Whispering 
 Mongo Man, he puts the voice through a very different process. Using a John Lennon interview as primary 
 source, but removing all traces of words spoken by the interviewee, retaining only his breathing, Newman totally
 obliterates the message, leaving the listener to imagine the missing content. Only vague pointers are thrown in 
 with other ghostly processed voices to occasionally try to make sense, rather unsuccessfully it has to be said, 
 of the lost discussion. Elsewhere, fragments of conversations find their way through the corrosive beats of It 
 Contains A Diagnosis, while heavy breathing, at times unprocessed, at others distorted, give the already 
 inhospitable They Move On Me a dark twist. 

 On the whole, Detached Metal Voice is a much more menacing and tensed collection than Autistici’s recent album,
 and while it is a less consistent record, due possibly to its tracks having been presumably recorded over a period
 of time, it is still a very fine collection of assertive electronica by a confident musician. If this record is anything to 
 go by, another trip down the Autistic vaults of unreleased music is definitely something to look forward to: roll on 
 volume two!

 IGLOO

 David Newman embarks on a retrospective of his embryonic sound world, prompted perhaps by having 
 completed a decade of exploratory endeavour, wanting to take stock of his developmental trajectory. Autistici's 
 nascent voice emerges somewhat croakily on Detached Metal Voice - Early Works (Vol. 1), 'a collection of early 
 works exploring the raw extrusion of the human condition'. In keeping with its theme, these are more discomfiting 
 scenarios than in his more mature work, the tone set by a harsher retro-futurist sonology. We're in territory where
 the now tired epithet experimental reverts to a previous signification; difficult. The clinical psychologist (Newman's 
 day-job) is more of an auteur here, musical vehicle affording a channel for re-processing elements of his 
 experiential world through abstract sound. For the listener the album is likely to work differently from Newman's 
 almost therapeutic deployment; in fact, with euphonic considerations decidedly on hold, the unsuspecting listener 
 may be in for a rough audio-ride.

 The eponymous voice (incl. Bell Laboratories' voice synthesis experiments of the 60s/70s) incides in dislocated 
 fragments consorting with DIY synths and sinewave oscillators and a cornucopia of sonic detritus in diverse, 
 faintly dystopian, settings. Specific pieces manifest a shifting skittish nature, like "Morphine (Detail)" with its 
 electroacoustic classical bricolage, whirled up with combustion and synth-squeals, vocal cut-ups and sound poetry. 
 "On A Beach Of Pure Data" opens the collection with the faintly malevolent flutter and whirr of malfunctioning 
 shards cohering into flickering occasionally accidental rhythms, like a chance encounter of errant machinery acted 
 out to a backdrop of ominous synthetics. "Colonic People" lets a dyspeptic jazzband slowly, queasily, be submerged 
 under caustic infusions of noise and reverb, rnadom PA verbiage and digi-squalls. In contrast, "Whispering Mongo 
 Man" reduces John Lennon to the breath between words in a miasma of pitched-down phonology and insectoid 
 chatter. "It Contains a Diagnosis" sidles up like a mutant Autech-funk replicant, pulsing with a kind of metallic beat'n'
 bleep patter, versions of which present elsewhere. Throughout proceedings are tinted with a self-conscious 
 tension in a sort of surreal elision of ambient soundscape and found sound stretched into ill whimsy and knowingly
 sinister mood music a la Chris Morris's Jam, as male, female, ovine and bovine babble are lightly drizzled or heavily 
 mashed into 'an abstract narrative exploring the anxiety of disconnected elements striving to find connection in a 
 world of digital communication.' (sic) 

 VITAL WEEKLY

 So far we known Autistici as a band with some fine microsound like music for labels such as 12K. Maybe its a bit 
 early for a retrospective of early work for such a young band, but you never know where expectations come 
 from for things like this. This is quite different from the music we already heard from them. Here Autistici work 
 with the human voice which the feed through a synthesizer called ASY, as developed at Bell Laboratories in the 
 60s and 70s. The music is definitely different than the later work. More based, of course, within synthesizer 
 sounds, through which the voices (not as in 'vocals') are fed, bouncing off into the world of ambient but also at
 times rhythmic like IDM or breakbeat/jazz like ('Clononic People'). Its actually quite a nice release, I think. Hardly 
 like anything I heard from them before, but a pretty varied bunch of music, in which the voices are hardly to be 
 recognized. In that respect its great to have these early works now, rather than in twenty-five years. Maybe 
 Autistici should try and find some synthesis between these old music interest and their recent work. That would 
 be interesting. (FdW).

 ALT SOUNDS

 Audiobulb head honcho David Newman, always an embracer of the electronic edge, has delivered a particularly 
 prickly pair in Detached Metal Voice. Newman has raided his past and gathered together all the fruit born of long 
 dark nights closed off from the world with nothing but an old synth and a few circuit boards to keep him company 
 and fired them into the universe in this volume of uncomfortable future-retro sound.

 Those of you who thought Radiohead's 'Amnesiac' was a little out there need not trouble themselves with these 
 eleven tracks. Newman has searched near and far in his attempt at creating “an abstract narrative exploring the 
 anxiety of disconnected elements striving to find connection in a world of digital communication.” The album really 
 is as bonkers as that sounds with the application of synths, oscillators, cuttings of distorted speech and, as much
 as anything else, a brutal use of space and silence.

 'Colonic People' provides the only real moment of traditional instrumentation with an acoustic bass and some 
 shuffled drums, the rest of the record is given over to pure experimentation, like a freeform jazz interpretation 
 played out inside the brain of a server. In fact, opener 'On a Beach Of Pure Data' comes across like an 
 eavesdropped conversation between sentient computers as flashes of electricity crackle out of from underneath 
 the backdrop of doomy synthetic noise. We aren't dealing with Noise as a genre here though as these songs are 
 far more structured, verging on a classical stance.

 Elsewhere, more weird shit continues to happen with persons unknown clearly having rather a good time on both 
 'They Move On Me' and 'Beneath' (don't listen to this in the car with your Gran!) while 'Whispering Mango Man' uses 
 a John Lennon interview minus the John Lennon. Apparently Newman has left only the dead legend's breathing in 
 the mix of slowed down interviewer speech and robot insect chatter. An avant-garde ruse Yoko couldn't fail but to 
 admire.

 Detached Metal Voice will leave many scratching their heads - even those already aware of his recently released 
 second album "Complex Tone Test". Those who like to stretch their own taste limits and journey past the safety net 
 in search of warped new horizons should give Autistici a go, but be warned, easy this ain't.

 TEXTURA

 The first volume of Autistici's Detached Metal Voice – Early Works  presents forty-eight minutes of explorative 
 experimentalism by Audiobulb main man David Newman. The collection is intended to be heard as “an abstract 
 narrative exploring the anxiety of disconnected elements striving to find connection in a world digital 
 communication.” On that count, it certainly succeeds: in most of the eleven tracks, fractured voices add dislocated 
 narrative fragments to ice-cold, machine-driven settings assembled using homemade synthesizers and sinewave
 oscillators. Voice synthesis transmogrifies the human voice at times, and seldom is it heard in its natural form.

 “On A Beach Of Pure Data” begins the recording with the click and snarl of electronic shards and flickering 
 patterns, after which “Morphine (Detail)” combines the whirr of engine combustion noise with synthesizer squeals. 
 Coming after such untraditional settings, “Colonic People” startles with its jazz rhythm section of acoustic bass and 
 brushed drums, though it too serves as a springboard for a more experimental treatment when public voice 
 announcements and mini-typhoons of noise threaten to supplant the bass and drum parts. A rhythm dimension also 
 surfaces when “It Contains a Diagnosis” occasionally flirts with a kind of mutant robo-funk, but Detached Metal 
 Voice – Early Works is ultimately anything but a rhythm-centered outing .

 In “Babyman,” the babble of male and female speakers appears alongside cow-like moos and other mangled voice 
 treatments, and “Whispering Mongo Man” reduces a fifteen-minute John Lennon interview to nothing more than the 
 interstitial spaces between the spoken words—not that anyone would know by listening to the experimental setting
 itself, which sounds very much like the other tracks on the recording. Slightly more provocative are “They Move On 
 Me” and “Beneath,” both of which appear to include ecstatic sounds of lovemaking filtered through electronic 
 devices that only partially camouflage the evidence of the originating material. Be forewarned: the still-audible 
 orgasmic moans may make you feel more like a voyeur than you'd prefer. Put simply, the recording captures the 
 sound of Newman in his home laboratory trying out techniques and exploring ideas—process as important as 
 result. Just don't expect to be emotionally moved by the material; being abstract by nature, the project's appeal falls 
 more within the cerebral sphere. 

 Audiobulb Is an exploratory music label designed to support the work of innovative artists. 


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