Uitgebracht
September 2013
- In its original form, Bee Mask's "Vaporware" is a beautifully stitched assembly of interlocking patterns where, over the course of 13 minutes, Chris Madak shifts his focus through a series of gently foregrounded ideas. Each one gets a moment in the spotlight, and each one ultimately fades into the distance again to better serve the epic tapestry Madak has created. When Donato Dozzy got the chance to remix Madak's work, the richness and depth of those sounds led him to hand in seven different tracks, which Spectrum Spools have duly released in a double-LP package.
These versions are far more ambient than Madak's original material. Dozzy's mastery of hypnotic, looping techno is at the fore, as he chops sounds out of their original context and reshapes them into blurred, dovetailing loops, all working together in perfect tandem. Each sound hangs suspended for a time, spinning slowly so we can hear it from every angle. There are no great dynamic shifts, and few sudden movements to disrupt the atmosphere. Sounds gradually secure their place before gracefully finding their way back to silence, a flow that is almost static on the surface but constantly shifting underneath.
While none of the remixes are as long as the original, seven of them in a row does make for a pretty strange listening experience. Constituent elements become warped echoes, distorted by memories of having first heard them ten minutes ago, thirty minutes ago, or almost a year ago when the original piece came out. Dozzy has an impeccable feel for timing: he knows exactly how long to let each track hang, when to introduce a new loop and when to move on to a fresh rhythm. This sensibility is the perfect complement to Madak's ear for texture and melody. The end result is a close-up look at how many different ways a sound can be interpreted and bent into new shapes. A project like this could easily become an indulgent mess, but it's testament to the quality of the craftsmen involved that Plays Bee Mask remains consistently fascinating.
Tracklist 01. Vaporware 01
02. Vaporware 02
03. Vaporware 03
04. Vaporware 04
05. Vaporware 05
06. Vaporware 06
07. Vaporware 07