Cyclic Defrost Magazine

Posted: 18 Feb 2009 09:40 PM CST

For their third album proper (but first for Thrill Jockey), Mountains build upon a palette of drone, acoustic instrumentation, and a knack for delicate expression.

Starting an album with a 12 minute expanse may seem confrontational - it’s certainly unsafe radio territory - but, it’s the ideal way to acquaint yourself with the mesmeric patterns of Mountains. Title track ‘Choral’ is wholly befitting its namesake; the melody bubbles up from underneath the layers of drone, with a distinct lightness to the entire song’s construction. A little further in, sounds resembling voices fill the remaining space like light spreading through a cavernous bunker. A woozy, hazy introduction to the work of Brendon Anderegg and Koen Holtkamp, then.

Further in, you start to hear sentiments from Robin Guthrie, Fennesz, Susumu Yokota seeping through - sentiment more so than actual sounds, per se, as the languid 50 minute journey unfolds. ‘Add Infinity’ wraps fuzz and gentle feedback around itself, curiously sitting between two softer moments.

Synthetic is a phrase that doesn’t bear mentioning in the Mountains world, really. Pinpointing a particular machine sound or programmed loop is difficult. Mountains have this very clever way of introducing elements in and out of the mix so surreptitiously which makes you feel as if everything is there because it simply is, not because it’s been deliberately placed.

There is a tremendous sense of warmth here, beyond any particular descriptor. Mountains have achieved a rarity - ambient, drone-based composition that is instantly accessible as it is complex upon repeated listens.

Libythth – Upside Down Helicopter (Phthalo)

Posted: 18 Feb 2009 10:12 PM CST

Libythth

It’s been quite some time since Los Angeles-based electronic producer Qrqyt Ixoteptek (possibly not the name his parents gave him) last released new material under his Libythth moniker; indeed, after releasing 2000’s ‘Dizzolve A Diamond’ and 2001’s ‘Almost A Trillion Dollars’ on Phthalo, he’s spent much of the next ensuing decade virtually inactive. Apparently five years in the making, this third album ‘Upside Down Helicopter’ sees Libythth returning to action, and shows him continuing to ply a distinctly individual, eccentric and furiously beatladen path that sits well outside the established boundaries of the breakcore scene. After emerging with the sampled noise of whirling helicopter blades, opening track ‘YTYTYAXOTYYTN’ certainly accelerates rapidly into the sort of corkscrewing Amen breaks that have become the hallmark of breakcore, but rather than descending into the usual rhythmic warfare, the baffling genre colision of sampled drums, hammering kickdrums, cheesy cheap synths and chugging, rock guitars that follows calls to mind the likes of The Boredoms circa ‘Chocolate Synthesiser’, far more than say, Sickboy or Kid 606. The same certainly applies to ‘Cracknsmackattack’s eccentric collision of mantra-like repetitive drums and strangely Arabic-sounding melodic elements, which suggest strange ‘outsider’ rock more than anything else as jittering, hyperactive rhythms power their way to the surface, as well as ‘Foikydoikys’ descent into cheesy, square-dance style arcade game synths and Casiotone-worthy rhythms. Yes, it’s certainly suitably odd stuff that won’t appeal to everyone, but those with a taste for Libythth’s breakcore ‘outsider’ tendencies are likely to find these ten tracks developing more of an indescribable coherency with each ensuing listen.