Rick Reed here with The Symmetry of Telemetry (ELEVATOR BATH eeaoa066)…seems we haven’t heard from this American creator with a solo effort since 2011 and his sumptuous double LP The Way Things Go, although there was that occasion when he appeared with Keith Rowe and Bill Thompson, the latter a fellow Texan and fellow minimalist droner (on his guitar and guitar-synth set-up), for the Mikroton release Shifting Currents.
Today’s item indicates Reed is still enamoured of the long-form mode that pulls in listeners as surely as a desert whirlpool on Planet Mars – ‘Dysania’ for instance occupies all of side one and doesn’t let up for 20:10 mins – but I must say Symmetry is more “episodic” than we normally get with this fellow, and that 20-minute collaged tape journey is divided up into numerous portions and moments each with their own distinctive texture and flavour, like 18 brands of avant-garde ice cream from the short period when Baskin-Robbins opened a concession in the Mojave desert with money from La Monte Young. The other notable feature is the use of sampled records, or perhaps found radio segments – at any rate a singing voice does pop into view through one of the many sound windows, lets loose a few precious seconds of booming semi-operatic obbligato, and then vanishes again into the self-made ectoplasm. Not an especially new trope perhaps, but Reed does it sparingly, and with great panache.
Made in his home studio using lots of lovely analogue gear, the Buchla and Moog systems favoured by Pauline Oliveros and others. Plus there’s a tribute to Tony Martin, who was apparently a light-projection artist, who died around the time Reed was working on the tracks. Cover painting is also by Rick Reed – a moody watercolour decalcomania type thing. And who can resist the track title ‘Space Age Radio Love Song’, the best title never to have been used by Sun Ra? Vinyl release only, some of them pressed in clear vinyl with special covers. From 26 July 2023.