Noonbugs

Mego's press release refers to Pure's CD Noonbugs as "a take on the darker edge of 20th century classical/avant-garde" and attempts to put it in the same category as the works of Alvin Lucier and Eliane Radigue — by saying it doesn't belong there, which is a clever rhetorical abracadabra. This album does indeed fit the dark ambient criteria and stands as the label's smoothest sonic ride up to this point, but composer's music? One should not automatically build a wall between so-called serious music and electronica (actually, such a wall would now be impossible), but clearly this continuous one-hour piece has been conceived by the mind of an electronic artist. The pace, flow, technique, and general constitution of it stem from experimental ambient rooms, not academic studios. The eight indexes represent points of inflection in the unfolding of the piece: changes in thickness, introduction of a new sound source, new momentum. Throughout, drones and sine waves move around at a comfortable pace. Digital glitches and treated samples populate the landscape — a female voice in "Ivan," a bowed double bass in "Pelt." If Pure demonstrates a commanding level of artistry as a sound designer, his piece remains too unidimensional to really engage the listener. Much more eventful than Lucier's or Radigue's music on its first level, in the end it opens fewer doors of perception. It has moments that fans of Fennesz and Kim Cascone will enjoy, but it rarely reaches either one's hypnotizing charm. ~ François Couture, Rovi