More Than Idle Chatter

• Artist: Paul Lansky
• Rating:
• Release Date: 1994
• Total Time: 58:26
• Genre: Classical

Review

Composer and experimental musician Paul Lansky was one of the originators of working with granular synthesis and time stretching, the process of taking digital information and using computers to stretch and pull the sound like taffy. "Idle Chatter" began as a track on a Wergo compilation of new electronic music, and Lansky's album expands on his idea. "Idle Chatter" takes spoken word; breaks the sound into small sections, syllables, glottal stops, and such; then throws them in a blender. The result is a tense whirlwind of nonsense talk, with a calm center of synth washes. The babble remains just this side of comprehensible. "Just_More_Idle_Chatter" and "notjustmoreidlechatter" build upon these ideas, bringing more form and shape to the sounds, quiet passages mixed with loud ones. The other tracks here aren't as dynamic and are more pensive. "Word Color" plays with selected text from a Walt Whitman poem, letting the treated vocals ring like a bell; "The Lesson" is a rather tedious treatment of a conversation with fellow composer J.K. Randall; and "Memory Pages" intercuts evocative words with spatterings of MIDI keyboard. ~ Ted Mills, Rovi

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