JUST OUTSIDE (January 2010)
If I call this disc "ingratiating", I don't intend the term with the
slightest pejorative tinge. In fact, I was unable to dislodge this
thing from my CD player for several days; it was that winning.
At a gloss, it's oddly retro, though its points of reference are
scarcely more than a decade old: the ambient glitch music of
people like Fennesz from the mid to late 90s. Fennesz is an
unavoidable referent, I guess, though there's more going on
here than that, but Gomberg's general palette is that of rich,
ringing, creamy electronics spiced with small bits of noise
shrapnel. There's loose repetition, even the odd, pulsing
rhythm. And it all sounds so goddamn good. Tracks like "Into",
with its snaky little groove, echoing clicks and vestige of a
melody just worm their way in, impossible to resist. And "Solo"
is positively deadly, sauntering in with perhaps a vague nod to
the rhythms in "Are You Experienced?", and tumbling through
the room, all manner of detritus attached to its sides, heedless,
a little boastful even, exiting in all its hilarious glory, jauntiness
intact. "Comme" is the best potential crossover disc I've heard
since Radian's "rec.extern". Check it out, get some for your
friends. (Brian Olewnick)
If I call this disc "ingratiating", I don't intend the term with the
slightest pejorative tinge. In fact, I was unable to dislodge this
thing from my CD player for several days; it was that winning.
At a gloss, it's oddly retro, though its points of reference are
scarcely more than a decade old: the ambient glitch music of
people like Fennesz from the mid to late 90s. Fennesz is an
unavoidable referent, I guess, though there's more going on
here than that, but Gomberg's general palette is that of rich,
ringing, creamy electronics spiced with small bits of noise
shrapnel. There's loose repetition, even the odd, pulsing
rhythm. And it all sounds so goddamn good. Tracks like "Into",
with its snaky little groove, echoing clicks and vestige of a
melody just worm their way in, impossible to resist. And "Solo"
is positively deadly, sauntering in with perhaps a vague nod to
the rhythms in "Are You Experienced?", and tumbling through
the room, all manner of detritus attached to its sides, heedless,
a little boastful even, exiting in all its hilarious glory, jauntiness
intact. "Comme" is the best potential crossover disc I've heard
since Radian's "rec.extern". Check it out, get some for your
friends. (Brian Olewnick)
Billy Gomberg (b 1979, Chicago) is a musician and video artist
living in Brooklyn, New York. His studio practice incorporates
analog synthesis, digital treatments, acoustic recordings and
custom programming that gives rise to electronic sound caught
gazing at its own physicality, acoustics in love with their own
abstraction.
Billy's debut CD release displays abstract and complex
dimensions of texture and tone that might make more sense
at first on a subconscious level before it will on a conscious one.
Therefore, it is advised to first approach this music from a pure
listening standpoint, free from preconceived notions of musical
structure and form since it can defy such prosaic logic.
"These tracks are the start of my working toward a more
immediate sound - improvisation w/software, real-time
construction of the sound material and structure, taking priority.
While some material comes from software in real-time, all other
sound was generated by Roland Juno synthesizers, plus a few
tracks incorporate my voice. Post-production editing and
treatment were mostly employed to find the clearest expression
of my improvisations and shape them into more conventional
'tracks' or 'songs.' When improvising in this style, I do have a
sense of trying to find a 'song,' and letting that take me
somewhere else.
Somewhat more abstractly - where was I when I started this
work - a good portion of this album was started just after I
moved to Brooklyn in 2005. Risking cliché, this is raw sound, a
discovery of style (or a total lack of it). I just make music, it's
a space between the listener and myself. In this way, sound is
'simple' - it's presence as we listen gives it expression, our
listening finds its language." (Billy Gomberg)
Billy has exhibited or performed in New York, Boston,
Providence, London, Lisbon, Graz, and Zurich to name a few,
plus he was one of the artists featured at the first and/OAR
label showcase event during February of 2009.
living in Brooklyn, New York. His studio practice incorporates
analog synthesis, digital treatments, acoustic recordings and
custom programming that gives rise to electronic sound caught
gazing at its own physicality, acoustics in love with their own
abstraction.
Billy's debut CD release displays abstract and complex
dimensions of texture and tone that might make more sense
at first on a subconscious level before it will on a conscious one.
Therefore, it is advised to first approach this music from a pure
listening standpoint, free from preconceived notions of musical
structure and form since it can defy such prosaic logic.
"These tracks are the start of my working toward a more
immediate sound - improvisation w/software, real-time
construction of the sound material and structure, taking priority.
While some material comes from software in real-time, all other
sound was generated by Roland Juno synthesizers, plus a few
tracks incorporate my voice. Post-production editing and
treatment were mostly employed to find the clearest expression
of my improvisations and shape them into more conventional
'tracks' or 'songs.' When improvising in this style, I do have a
sense of trying to find a 'song,' and letting that take me
somewhere else.
Somewhat more abstractly - where was I when I started this
work - a good portion of this album was started just after I
moved to Brooklyn in 2005. Risking cliché, this is raw sound, a
discovery of style (or a total lack of it). I just make music, it's
a space between the listener and myself. In this way, sound is
'simple' - it's presence as we listen gives it expression, our
listening finds its language." (Billy Gomberg)
Billy has exhibited or performed in New York, Boston,
Providence, London, Lisbon, Graz, and Zurich to name a few,
plus he was one of the artists featured at the first and/OAR
label showcase event during February of 2009.
TEXTURA (December 2009)
Comme, a generous portion of which was begun after Gomberg
moved to Brooklyn in 2005, unspools in perpetual motion, its
eight real-time improvisations mini-whirlpools of software-
generated textures, Roland Juno synthesizer sounds, and voice
elements. Like magnified films of micro-organism activity, the
tracks spring to life with all manner of glitch-laden clicks,
rattles, and whirrs. Spontaneity rules, as Gomberg lets the raw
material develop naturally and with immediacy, the deferential
creator content to let a given track travel where it may. The
incessant chatter of crackle and hum punctuates glimmering
nuclei of electric piano-like burble in percolating pieces of
largely beatless design. “Channel” proves especially ear-
catching, to some degree because Gomberg adds the rhythmic
presence of a kick drum's elastic thump to the track's insectoid
chatter, as does the aggressive “Solo” on account of a smeary,
fuzz-toned attack that's strongly reminiscent of Oval. Odder
still, “Letter” harks back even further in sounding at times like
the kind of experiment Miles Davis might have recorded when
his interest in Stockhausen was in full bloom.
Comme, a generous portion of which was begun after Gomberg
moved to Brooklyn in 2005, unspools in perpetual motion, its
eight real-time improvisations mini-whirlpools of software-
generated textures, Roland Juno synthesizer sounds, and voice
elements. Like magnified films of micro-organism activity, the
tracks spring to life with all manner of glitch-laden clicks,
rattles, and whirrs. Spontaneity rules, as Gomberg lets the raw
material develop naturally and with immediacy, the deferential
creator content to let a given track travel where it may. The
incessant chatter of crackle and hum punctuates glimmering
nuclei of electric piano-like burble in percolating pieces of
largely beatless design. “Channel” proves especially ear-
catching, to some degree because Gomberg adds the rhythmic
presence of a kick drum's elastic thump to the track's insectoid
chatter, as does the aggressive “Solo” on account of a smeary,
fuzz-toned attack that's strongly reminiscent of Oval. Odder
still, “Letter” harks back even further in sounding at times like
the kind of experiment Miles Davis might have recorded when
his interest in Stockhausen was in full bloom.
| CLICK COVER IMAGE TO SEE LARGE VERSION |
| REVIEWS |
