Keith Fullerton Whitman - Playthroughs
(Kranky)
Keith Fullerton Whitman, better known to the general public by his hyperactive break beat compositions under the name Hrvatski, has of late found himself emerged in a world of ambient tonality. By way of various computer programs and analog tape machines, Whitman has derived a process that strips acoustic and electric guitars of their signature texture and leaves behind only a series of whiteout overtones. The result is a cauldron of sine wave sighs and organ like swells that slowly build up to visceral climaxes and dissipate in slow motion smears.
Although Fullerton's process may owe a lot to Fripp and Eno's work (Evening Star / No Pussyfooting) and the tape machine work of Terry Riley and Steve Reich, it also calls to mind the more recent sine wave aesthetics of Ryoji Ikeda or Carsten Nicolai. But unlike Ikeda and Nicolai, whom push the envelope of rhythm, melody, and perception, Whitman takes comfort in carving out lush and melodic structures from the remnants of single notes. The second track, "Feedback Zwei," features hypnotic and driving undertones that eventually are lost to gorgeous waves of white noise. The whole track fades quietly and gives a few moments of breath before "Fib01a" starts in like a dream, its foreground ripe with the ever-present glitch while the background shimmers with the defused remnants of a melody. The album closer "Medena" is a pointillist meditation that sustains notes in small clusters, and captures small slices of something that was a whole.
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