Greg Fenton reviews Scanner – The Phenol Tapes – Alltagsmusik
The second album, The Phenol Tapes sets a quick pace for this next release on Scanner’s label, Alltagsmusik. Following on from January’s, Alchemeia the album could not, in many ways, be more different. It still possesses that same hotwired infatuation with the world of electronic discourse, although in this instance feels less tied to the inspiration of a previous, older timeframe, being let loose to roam freely across a modular palate reaching out towards an uncertain future. Retaining the power of music to, at the very least, facilitate the possibility of change to our surrounding cultural environment is an important aspect of this sonic conversation. You can hear it in the spaces.
The backstory to the creation of the album is unsurprisingly a fascinating one, being recorded in a wooden fisherman’s hut in Captiva, Florida, and you get a very real sense of how location immerses an artist in the realisation of their Art. Excuse the pomposity but I hear the wonder of the surrounding universe playing throughout The Phenol Tapes as nature raises the temperature in each note. That’s certainly true to the names checked by Robert and Cy feeding free radicals their proper due. Likewise, recalled in the strange tales of The Osprey as the grainy whir of transmission gets fuzzy communicating its introspective, tense language directly to the listener.
That sequence of musical inner intensity coupled with life-affirming heights follows as each track raises expectations across a world of feeling, atmospheric, and human release. Crystalized brilliantly in turn by the dangerous exhilaration of Odalisk Broadcast, sounding like footsteps approaching out of nowhere, and the wondrously uplifting final piece, The Gold Painting. The journey is key.
Release: March 15
Buy Scanner – The Phenol Tapes at Bandcamp
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Artwork by Matthew Shaw. Instagram page Here
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