pop_and

This is a beautiful follow-up to Canadian sound artist S. Arden Hill's
wonderful work on the 3-way split release with Nibo and Vend on
the Line label. Radiant tones and crackling artifacts embellish hazy
vistas of slow falling snow... And that's just one track. With titles like
"Still Flowing Beneath The Ice", "There is Hoarfrost on The Trees",
"A Range Of Outward Emotions On An Awkward Snowy Day", and "-
40 Degrees C", one would expect equally inclement soundworks,
but instead, Arden has created what could be among some of the
warmest pieces ever created regarding such climatic conditions,
while still successfully conveying what would commonly be viewed
as otherwise.

IGLOO: m i c r o v i e w volume 6 (March 2004)
* * * * 1/2 Winnepeg's Duul_Drv (S. Arden Hill) has refreshed the
screen of microtones and brought a garden-fresh variety to the
contemporary minimal electronics composition forum. Fade With
Consequence contains the natural sounds many take for granted,
those under our feet and in the air, true organic happenstance.
Dedicating this to the loving memory of a relative, there is the sense
of conjuring an elegy to the elements in their honor. Also a painter,
Hill's editing play is surely in union with any brush he wields. I liked
his work with Aperstaatje and 12k/Line - but this has a
quintessential intimacy - as if I am right there in the space, maybe
even making the noise myself. Fade With Consequence is, to say
simply, rapturous. Dedicated to perhaps some of Hill's influences
and proto-peers is the vibrantly invisible "Blue On Day (for Chartier,
Gunter, and Roden)". As I listen closely, I am recalling experiences
of listening to the field recordings of both j.frede and Seth Nehil. But
Duul_Drv makes the spoken tongues of the earth, air and various
growths a digital transfer, leaving only the outer shavings of the
original outdoor scene behind and replicating it in the studio. This is
like a tapestry of static electricity that tries hard to remain inaudible;
a bit challenging, but effective enough to keep the ears pricked for
its 40 plus minutes. (TJ Norris)

VITAL WEEKLY number 394 week 43 (2003)
If you thought that the label and/OAR was mostly about field
recordings (such as on their phonography compilations), then these
two [this and the Andrew Duke release] prove you right and wrong.
Right, in the way that these use field recordings in some way, but
they are processed to a certain extent, and not presented as clear,
unprocessed events. Work by Duul_Drv, aka S. Arden Hill, was
previously available on 12k/Line and here presents material along
similar lines. Duul_Drv does what some denounce as "laptop
ambient" (and they don't mean it in a very positive way): sparsely
orchestrated software synth lines, with occasional and likewise
sparse clicks. At times a deep bass thump. Bits of field recordings
zip through the mass of ambient sounds. It's altogether a nice
release, maybe a bit on the safe side of things, not aiming for
something radically new, but operating in a safe genre that
microsound can be. (Frans de Waard)

E / I MAGAZINE ISSUE 6
(WINTER / SPRING 2006)
Microsound fashion is chronically guilty of relying on metaphors of
snow and ice, a sangfroid pose that uses minimalism to
conveniently hijack romance without the vulnerability of explicit
sentimentality. However, the Winnipeg winter pieces that are
duul_drv's Fade With Consequence, a collection of treated field
recordings, pack twice the sublimated humidity and thaw one
expects from a Canadian phonographic composer whose pieces
nominally reference "hoarfrost on trees" in "-40 C." While wearing
the equally-icy duul_drv ("dual drive") moniker, S. Arden Hill's music
enlists not the air of cyber-stoic snowy environs, but the human
responses engendered by them: the behaviors of winter campers in
self-reliant, kinetic quietude. Each track here is light, bird-boned but
giddy, teeming with life. Some sound marks irritate when they veer
off toward inorganic self-referentiality ("medium as message" has
little to offer in this context). However, Hill has a poet's knack for
creating wonder via naturalism and narrative occlusion, wrapping
listeners in well-crafted Wikiups that retain body heat in the
sub-arctic half-light, lending solid tools for blind navigation.
(William S. Fields)