Area C (lead by Erik Carlson, and joined by a few like-minded collaborators) first came to my attention last year via their excellent contribution to the Last Visible Dog monster compilation “The Invisible Pyramid: Elegy Box.” Even before that public debut they’d been quietly building a reputation in their hometown environs of Providence, Rhode Island for electronic explorations issued as a series of self-released 3” cdrs (most recently released was “Handmade #4”). Traffics + Discoveries is the band’s debut full-length and the varied approach allowed by the longer running time is exploited to the fullest. The smooth surfaces of effect-laden guitar and organ are polished with gritty sandpaper as Carlson’s compositions maintain fragility without brittleness. Their supple curves can roll the listener around in space like a ball as they decay and regenerate in relation to themselves and to silence.
After the brief hazy pulse of “daymarks”, the track “sheering out a line” settles in with its looped guitar lines intersecting, overlapping, and entwining over a set of constantly shifting background drones. The lines become fuzzed with warm electronic distortion as they build, subside and regroup. The effect is quite similar to Peter Wright’s less abstract pieces though perhaps more tightly melodic. “in channels” features tight loops oscillating against each other while refracted bursts of staticky guitar penetrate the underwater scene. The guitar clouds in “treble thickness” remind me a bit of the sonic wallpaper This Mortal Coil used to decorate their rooms of sound but Carlson populates his room by alternating a simple descending riff with a quavering high chord on the Farfisa.
The album’s centerpiece “dark radio / light waves” starts out melding AM radio transmission with a gently jittery, bubbling, and crackling synthesizer throb. The piece quickly transitions to inner space integrating a tidal ebb and flow of field recordings and shifting effects that become progressively more grainy and deteriorated. Carlson next juxtaposes the delicately introspective “ordinary vane” with the bursting “sheets of sound” of “squall (2)” which transposes disruptive editing techniques with (relatively) softer shafts of guitar and occasional percussion. The “jaw harp” sequencer that introduces and reoccurs later in mutated form in “jinking and tunneling” harkens back to mid-70’s mind expanding Kraftwerk and Tangerine Dream as Carlson throws in additional elements to buffet the listener in a sweet headphone experience. “surface volumes” and “sleeping through cities” take the disc out on a blissed-out and pulsating mellow vibe that toys with but never quite succumbs to dissolution. It is a fitting end for a disc and band that continually flirts with the territory just beyond the boundaries of order only to continually and satisfyingly return inside the fold.
