From Bookmat
A bit of a departure for the ADAADAT label, this collaborative project between sound art project Disinformation and the editor of the Strange Attractor journal, Mark Pilkington sounds akin to the kind of uncompromising experimental laptop noise you might find on a Mego release. The aesthetics of this music particularly bring to mind the likes of General Magic or Farmers Manual, being characterised by a granular distortion and severely destabilised use of stereo channels (the third, untitled track is pretty much all about the left speaker, for example). The music on this release doesn’t stem from any sophisticated homemade algorithms however, but rather the practice of setting up a strong electromagnetic field in close proximity to a toy electronic keyboard. This rather destructive practice yields fascinating results, with some beautifully mangled, involuntary circuit spasms. At times the results are outbreaks of unleashed digital noise, but more often than not there’s a surprisingly sophisticated and intriguing outcome that preserves evidence of the toy keyboard’s recognisable sonic characteristics. Excellent.