Thanet - Receiving Calls

Spread out over three discs, this is the sprawling masterpiece of a man in constant motion... Mr. Maxted. Some of you may have heard the work he's issued under his own name and marveled at it's meticulously precise composition. This is not how Thanet plays out through the hours it takes to listen to 'Receiving Calls'. 2011 seems to contain a lot of expositions on arcane delights so far and this saga is no exception. Maxted rears a more recognizable face just once throughout 'Receiving Calls'. I'd be curious to know what calls he's getting on this wavelength, it would not be decipherable even to the most patient set of ears. Who's doing the dialing, because this project is not making or revealing anything concrete at all, right down to the beautifully isolationist artwork. There's a figure on that beach but you can't make anything out except that it's a human form... possibly.

What little else has been written about Thanet seems to imply that he's been cut off, and that his work is not to be completely understood in traditional terms. Do the ends justify the means? In most cases I'd say one shouldn't take this route but Maxted via his Thanet receiver somehow has managed to capture the soundtrack of exquisite alienation on a scale I don't think many or any could match. If it seems like I'm a little out of my depth here, bear with me, I've been playing this thing nearly non-stop since acquiring it two weeks ago. There's so much to absorb and my mind has been running into overdrive keeping up with all the details that are cleverly hidden within the luminous matrix of 'Receiving Calls'. Abstractions of light flit about as if to illuminate this prescient epicenter of surrealistic noir completely at long last. It's the pacing of a sinister maestro in his element, hair disheveled and eyes wildly darting from corner to corner hoping to summon the shadows of cerebral dissonance to do his bidding.

A singular chord echoes across the glass surface of still waters, as it resonates it gains power... like a tsunami reaching the shore, the sheer destructive force and compelling drive of the pieces on here utterly overwhelm. Better hope you can swim, if not, this shipwreck is one you'll gladly drown in. Poisonous flora choke out the light but there's no panic nor is there anything but acceptance. That watery grave is softer than you might think, here just listen for a little while and it will begin to make sense: if you allow it in it will never leave, if you let me lead you down the path I'll show you things you'd never believe. There's the message in a nutshell. Let yourself go, Thanet have been compiling this special surprise for some time now and it'd be folly not to go along. I'm still there even now, in the rusted out belly of the beast being slowly digested, next to me is a decrepit phone with it's keypad dry rotted all to hell.

I think I have a call to make. Jul 30 2011