cathars: amorpheus

cat-a.jpg (5k) cathars: amorpheus
(miau-miau international - 1999)

Audio designer Kurt Ralske, formerly of electropop project Ultra Vivid Scene, has focused his attentions away from his previous stylings, toward a more abstract side of electronic sounds. Operating as cathars on his newest CD amorpheus, Ralske engages in digital experimentations, some more successful than others to these ears.

A whirling shower of shards of sound and feedback, avian maria flutters, flits and pulsates. The rapidly warbling backdrop of dust which merges with a cool, jazzy cymbal and bass accompaniment, subjected to various audio oscillations, thankfully smooths out into a more stable flow. Hazy morse code blips and electronic grunties originate from the direction of east north-east, emanating in sputtering staccato bursts over thick, slowly meandering organ notes.

The dense, detritus-ridden sonic drift of onwards, upwards is backed by e-beats and shimmery synthwaves. Like the soundtrack for a bad acid trip, dfusion is the discordant (and seemingly endless) merger of softly echoing bell tones with atonal keyboarding and light e-percussion. Ringing and echoing into an audible smear, the bells and electronics of tributaries are laced with cyclic glints, and a low electronic ruffle at the piece's conclusion.

Semi-symphonic and disjointed, endmotion swelters in a state of suspended trepidation; interlaced with electric residue, sweeping string chords slip amongst each other, while hovering over a faraway, grumbling drone. Looped, minimalistic e-tones phase through eclipse (2:22), and are impaled by reverse soundwaves. Musical bits and pieces (including wheezy violin-ish strands) are composited and slightly blurred in salt, another moody soundcollage.

Blaring orchestral brass and undulating sinewaves emit from amorpheus in geometrical ringed patterns, spreading and growing. Emerging from a brief silence, the long-running "hidden" track (14:29) which closes the disc radiates in wafting/waning cloudforms propelled by a simple beat.

cathars' amorpheus tracks span a range of experimental styles and textures. Personally, I was turned on by some (say, endmotion or eclipse ) more than others (i.e. dfusion). But even in this highly subjective world of abstract sound, I can dole out a sturdy 7.7 for the spirit of sonic exploration which pervades these pieces.

Incidentally, Ralske's other recent release, kyrie eleison, was Overviewed last month.

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This review posted August 28, 1999

AmbiEntrance © 1999-97 by David J Opdyke (except CD cover art, rights retained by original owners).