Inversion

Album review

Keeping in the tradition of the precedent set by previous Basic Channel releases, particularly the previous Cyrus record, the hidden collective known behind these infamous records takes the practice of minimal repetition to insane lengths. The two songs on this record never seem to break free of the cycles they establish for themselves and never seem to end, lasting almost 20 minutes a piece. Sure, 20-minute songs had been done before -- Grateful Dead's "Dark Star," Donna Summer's "Love to Love You Baby," Kraftwerk's "Autobahn" -- but never had so little progression occurred within such an epic context of time. On "Presence," the length of a traditional techno track passes before the song's percussion even starts. Similarly, besides the entry of percussion and the song's "Lyot"-like riff, nothing really changes. There are the few occasional static bursts and some muted percussion sprinkles, but the song isn't much more than a gigantic cycling maelstrom of throbbing bass frequencies, a steady 4/4 pound, and some syncopated high-hat snare taps. The record's other song, "Inversion," strips away all of this -- percussion, synth, bass, 4/4 rhythm, addition, subtraction -- resulting in a 20-minute-long exercise in sound modulation meets echoing reverb with a strange mechanical tone as the subject. In the end, this record takes the mesmerizing repetition of Cyrus' Enforcement to new lengths, resulting in a stunning record that requires more patience than only a small minority of music listeners cares to likely exercise.
© Jason Birchmeier /TiVo