pop_and

This new enigmatic and atmospheric 3" release displays yet another
side to the works of the already versatile Canadian sound artist, DJ,
and music journalist Andrew Duke. It was initially intended as an
abstract sonic commentary on how some politicians (particularly in
his home town of Halifax, Nova Scotia), tend to have misplaced
priorities when it comes to placing importance on preserving the
natural environment. Therefore he writes: "I often use the sounds of
Halifax in my work as my way of commenting on how something so
beautiful (our harbor) is destroyed through (in)action -- we've been
pumping our untreated sewage into the harbor for over 200 years and
the city is still more interested in building new roads and buildings
than sewage treatment plants. There are outbreaks every summer
from people who get sick from the water because it is so
contaminated; so some of the edgier (moments) are about that --
(i.e.) the illnesses we bring upon ourselves." Includes one track with
Anne Sulikowski (Building Castles Out Of Matchsticks).

EAR / RATIONAL (APRIL 2004)
Electric tickles on your ear, the (for the lack of a better word)
percussion sounds like someone rolling marbles across my skull -
too bad I can't fell them. A drawn out melody spirals and tones pull.
The following track has luscious water sounds, low pitched from
deep inside a boat and something that sounds like the splashing on
top of the deck. Of course, these are not the real sounds, but a feeling
I get from their creation. A generated song that I love. Then, mmm,
juicy atmospheres, nothing except an emptiness. Room tone, and
little else. What this causes you to do is pay attention to your
surroundings. I have equally been listening to a light that I installed
with a dimmer buzz and the far more tonal music of my G4 fan.
Time for bed, I guess. (Don Poe)

IGLOO microview volume 7 (MARCH 2004)
* * * * 1/2 Halifax's Andrew Duke has released a brilliant mini
nineteen-minute three-track for Seattle's and/OAR. Its watery, ebullient
austerity drifts in a shallow depth of field on "Boil Order." The
microtonal silent roar of the nearly fourteen minute "Industrial Itch" is a
drone based on a one second clip, as other tracks here, it is derived
from field recordings and other sound samples from cities in Ontario
and Nova Scotia. The mythic fade and placid ebb of faint bubbly cracks
in the surface are pale among the din drawl of the invisible wake here.
Subtle as a fly caress, while undulating througout the room, deeper
than a San Francisco fog atop Twin Peaks. (TJ Norris)

VITAL WEEKLY volume 394 week 43 (2003)
Based on recordings made in cities, Andrew Duke has two relatively
short tracks and one long one. The first piece is entirely based upon a
one second sound, being filtered, stretched, looped, and otherwise
electronically changed, whereas the recording of water is the basis of
the second piece, which is quite noisy (and short). The final piece, over
thirteen minutes long is also based on a one second sound sample,
but it seems here just basically stretched out, with just a few minimal
alternations going on. A bit too minimal for my taste, although it brings
the work of Duke into different fields, away from the more rhythmic
outings of recent. (Frans de Waard)