Various Artists - Between The Cracks

Between The Cracks is a 10 track, 40 minute compilation featuring 9 CS² Recordings artists (1 artist labeled on the compilation isn't listed on the website as a CS² artist) manipulating electro-acoustic music in the style of Musique Concrète. It is available for download/purchase on their website either in CD, FLAC or MP3 format.

In order to appreciate this compilation for what it is, I had to do a bit of research to figure out what Musique Concrète is. Upon my first listen of the album, I knew it was electro-acoustic music, but it was so disjointed for me that I flat out just didn't enjoy it and I was happy that most of the songs were under 5 minutes. I determined that it sounded like experimental Industrial music being played & recorded in an art gallery noise show back in 1990, and I had a hard time getting through the album because it sounded of low quality mp3s. I took my research into my own hands after not receiving an email back from the label in regards to the compilation & explored the world of Musique Concrète.

Musique Concrète is a genre of experimental electronic music & a music creation technique that was invented in the 1940's in France. It is the recordation of "natural" sounds (such as rainfall, a train, a person sighing, the sounds of an industrial factory, a piano key strike) & the manipulation of these sounds using record players & a mixing desk to create distortion of the original sounds & turn it into a musical composition. Basically, it was how people used to sample, loop, reverse, pitch shift & control gain before the invention of the synthesizer. It is manual experimental distortion, instead of having a computer program do it for you. Sounds were recorded into a microphone & onto a record. These were played on record players with the sound being transferred to a mixing desk & further manipulated with metal plates for reverb or with filters to change the frequencies. The songs on this compilation were made in this manner & CS² Recordings is dedicated to preserving this lost form of performance art.

After doing research & taking another listen I've decided that, while I appreciate the creation of the music & have respect for the artists, this just isn't my thing. I'd prefer to see this music performed live rather than listen to a recorded song, as I'm sure it loses some of the spark it's intended to create. Most of these songs are minimal, some leaning towards a dark ambient feel, some being more IDM and Noise in nature. It really is all over the place though. It's hard to form an opinion, as it's an artistic piece, sometimes getting really loud, ending abruptly, using distorted vocal samples. I believe that a few of the songs use musical instruments & you can tell which songs are still using synths. One song reminded me of Boards of Canada mixed with video game music. Another song reminded me of a watered down version of Gridlock. My favorite piece was probably the most Musique Concrète of all of them, using one long distorted sound and adding vocal distortion, scratching noises & static.

If you are interested in the musical style I would still take a listen. I'm glad I reviewed this because I got to learn about the genre and how people were able to distort sounds before being able to have a synth do it for them. Being a person who really enjoys noise music, this was very interesting for me. Oct 04 2012