A duo of Florian Hecker and Oswald Berthold (from Farmers Manual) come together to create a rather strange album. Consisting entirely of jagged pieces of digital garbage and noise, it completely confounds the listener’s expectations of what sound should do. Some parts of this get extremely loud, and conjecture up images of an extremely unstable molecule. Unfortunately, the lack of coherence or a unifying theme besides random chance makes it hard to enjoy or digest.
By no means are Hecker or Berthold strangers to an unorthodox approach to music. Usually though their experiments, as obtuse as they can be, do generally have a purpose. With this, it appears pure chance music. While that gives it a certain appeal, it lacks the sort of rigor Hecker puts into his project or what Berthold adds to Farmers Manual.
Instead, you’re presented with 44 tracks of digital debris. Combining this with another, more unifying theme, like what Mark Fell gave to his “Ten Types of Elsewhere” might have helped in making this more approachable, enjoyable, and interesting. Even putting various similar sounds or suites might have helped in making this a better album.
Pieces and moments exist on here which point to greater things, but they are never elaborated upon. Instead, you’re even a giant stream of data incoherently presented. That’s unfortunate, as usually these two artists have much to say.