[#/Tau] – Boris Hegenbart: First / Dew LP (Care Of Editions, 2013)

December 6, 2013 at 9:30 pm | Posted in Reviews | Leave a comment

[#/Tau] – Boris Hegenbart: First / Dew LP

This album is actually a partial reissue of Hikuioto, a CD self-released by Boris Hegenbart under his [#/Tau] alias in 1997. The album consists of low sinewave tones, connection interference/static/crackle, and field recordings. There’s some Japanese talking, so it’s hard for me to understand exactly what it’s about, but some of it sounds like it might be from public transportation, and the beginning of “Tacet” has a sharp voice exclaiming “MIND THE GAP”, so it has a definite city life feel. But there’s a nature feel as well, particularly with the extensive use of insect sounds, and the entire second side being an excerpt of a piece called “Musicforcicadas”. A few tracks also seem to have a reoccurring bit of gentle, blippy IDM-ish melody, starting with “Tripel” and then reprising this on “Folded”, which also features Japanese transit voices. “Drone” features bubbling water sound and low droning voices (possibly slowed down, possibly from an animal or human) and other strange buzzing sounds and voices, chopped up and layered into music. “Pond” ends the side with lots of buzzing insects, high-pitched voices/animals/insects that seem to say “mee mee mee mee”, and more Japanese dialogue. And then all of side B is “Musicforcicadas”, an extended collage of Japanese singing and insects, folded and endlessly looped into a hypnotic Steve Reich/Oval-inspired minimalist glitch mantra. The original CD release extended the piece out to 25 minutes, but the version on this LP is subtitled “(Cut)”, and very abruptly cuts the music off as if the “stop” button was pressed or possibly even the stereo unplugged, with no warning or fadeout.

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