Review in Vital Weekly

August 5, 2015    News

Söll – Cävv
Review in Vital Weekly by FdW:

Esc.rec from Deventer, The Netherlands, releases mostly in the digital domain, and have build up a fine catalogue (worth checking out if you are not afraid of music that you can only download and doesn’t have a physical form), but sometimes it also takes the shape of a disc. Here we have Söll, also known as Jorge Pandeirada, from Portugal and who’s interest lies in the concept of ‘randomness and what many regard as musical error’. I must admit it’s not something I hear in his music. He has seven pieces here and it spans some thirty-three minutes and it all seems to have been made with the computer. If anything I would say this is made using a variety of plug-ins or max/msp/pure data patches chewing away on an endless amount of field recording on the input side. Music that reminds me of all those things that were so hip years and years ago; when ‘microsound’ was a term to identify all that music made with laptops and field recordings on the input side. Perhaps there is an element of randomness in here, but it seems to be lost inside those strung-out lengthy fields of sound. Drones that in their melted from make up some fine ambient music. Quite dreamy stuff, very warm and yet, surprisingly, all made with the computer. ‘Warm glitch music’ is what I used to write about releases like this. Having said, I think this is not all bad; it’s not original but it’s not bad. There is some very sturdy processing going on in here and Söll pushes all the right buttons to create these. I’d say it’s a bit early for a revival for this kind of music, but who knows someday this will be mentioned as one of early revivalists.