Earlier this year, the Akron, Ohio duo Trouble Books featured a contribution from noise neighbors Tusco Terror on their most recent LP. Envisioning the pairing, Trouble Books’ reflective synth- and guitar-based ambient pop and Tusco Terror’s scraping, degenerate clamor would be an uncomfortable clash. At the close of Concatenating Fields, it was an outstanding contrast of gentle arpeggios and unhinged feedback that may have alluded to future pursuits, though not necessarily from the band’s Keith Freund and/or Linda Lejsovka.
Michael Tolan-- former member of Tusco Terror and transient to Trouble Books-- unearthed the moniker Superstorms to deflect modern ambient music conventions, pushing digital sounds to their limit and manipulating source material. If that and the fact that the project’s self-titled debut is mastered by ex-Khanate guitarist James Plotkin aren’t indicative of anything, it’s safe to assume that Tolan’s desire to conjure a damaged and tumultuous atmosphere must have been insatiable. Disseminated across five movements, Superstorms’s colossal drones resound with the magnitude of celestial bodies, but Tolan gives their manifestation an arc by closely examining every nearby star.
Superstorms may have been born out of opposition to contemporaries, but Tolan’s approach to composition and digital decay isn’t unfamiliar: household names Tim Hecker and October Language-era Belong come to mind when diving into the saturated solution of wistful harmony and eroding synthesis, and like the opening to Axolotl’s Memory Theatre, Superstorms has a mutability to its amorphous flux. Notwithstanding timbre and key, the separation lies within its path, generating at a cosmic volume and downsizing to the warmth of a back porch. In between certain elements enlarge and clash with others as a different pair will fuse into a fine alloy; abrasive clusters dissipate as unprocessed guitar swims to the surface and a frictionless hum coats the denouement in thorough serenity. Tolan has best displayed that he understands the possibilities of his music, and he demonstrates them all at their most fractured and cohesive.
[Superstorms Soundcloud]
[Buy Superstorms from Experimedia]
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