Donnacha Costello - Growing Up in Public
(Force Inc.)
Donnacha Costello transported his passion for minimal production design to a new setting
with his relocation from Dublin to New York City in 1998. Records on Costello's autonomous
Minimise imprint caught ears worldwide, eventually bringing him to the attention of Force
Inc.'s Achim Szepanski, Frankfurt's titan of experimental electronica. Szepanski has been
lucky lately, nurturing such international-underground finds as Jake Mandell, Exos,
Vladislav Delay, and Tomas Jirku, and Growing up in Public only extends his impressive
record. Costello deploys various digital and dub treatments, creating "click-house" tracks
that pursue minimal means to maximal ends. "Int" and "Rem" seem infinite, their patterns
of bass, beats, and hiccuping bleeps interspersed with spaces. Like the deceptive
repetitions underlying the work of minimalist magi Steve Reich, John Cage, and Tony
Conrad, the rigid rhythms of "Isolate" and "Lateral Thinking" appear to redouble and
disperse. Costello's strongest tracks couple such techniques with the refractive,
sound-bending tricknology of dub. When it works, as it does on "Lbp," "Var," "Nec," and
"Melan," the results are nothing short of gorgeous.
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