mono::poly
thomas dimuzio
gench/asphodel
2002 CDx2
play | buy
reviews
“... a luminous snapshot of an artist, who deserves widespread exposure. Highly recommended.” — All About Jazz
“The pallete is broad, but homogeneous, and like too often elsewhere, does not exclude subtlety.” — V.I.O.R.
“One of the top ten albums of 2002.” — Rod Smith/Citypages
“...the music conjures up visionary industrial complexes and always shapes like a slowly building storm.” — The Wire
“...extensive auditory illusions, screeching ethereal climaxes, droning and rumbling ambient music and floors of textures and stretching sounds.” — Chaindlk
All About Jazz
This 2-CD set represents live recordings performed by trailblazing synthesist Thomas Dimuzio along with like-minded artists such as Nick Didkovsky, Fred Frith, Anna Homler, and others. To that end, the West Coast-based artist stretches electronics to the outer boundaries of comprehension. Dimuzio sometimes opts for a shock therapy mode of operations, via bombastic sounding EFX diatribes. He mimics and conveys notions of perhaps communicating with the spirit world via electronically manipulated voices that fade in and out of various motifs. Moreover, Dimuzio and associates employ turbulent and/or subliminally transmitted rhythmic maneuvers. The listener might feel, caught up in a futuristic world where the sounds of the cosmos are fed into a sound distribution machine - altered by rhythm and alien voices. It is all up to our active imaginations, as Dimuzio’s concepts defy even the most modernistic categorizations. Ultimately, this newly released effort serves as a luminous snapshot of an artist, who deserves widespread exposure. Highly recommended. —Glenn Astarita
V.I.O.R.
Composer, multi-instrumentalist, sound producer of
discs and designer, Dimuzio has long experience of electronic exploration
and improvisation. His first own-produced cassettes go back to 1988 and,
although he has to some extent remained relatively ignored, the years
enabled him to refine a style with horse on the music concrete and noise.
Moreover, little fame did not prevent him from taking part in many concerts,
since he presents to us here a double compilation of recordings in public,
appearing in solo on the first and accompanied by various collaborators
on the second. Among these, one notices Chris Cutler and Fred Frith, DJ
Q-Bert (Invisibl Skratch Pikl) and Wobbly (Tigerbeat6). The pallete is
broad, but homogeneous, and does not exclude, like too often elsewhere,
subtlety. (4 stars) —Réjean Beaucage
Citypages
Rod Smith, freelance writer
TOP TEN 2002 ALBUMS:
1. Neko Case, Blacklisted (Bloodshot)
2. Avey Tare/Panda Bear/Geologist, Hollinndagain (self-released)
3. Chris Bowden, Slightly Askew (NinjaTune)
4. Jean Grae, Jean Grae (Third Earth)
5. Thomas Dimuzio, Mono:Poly (Asphodel)
6. Denali, Denali (Jade Tree)
7. Casino vs. Japan, Whole Numbers Play the Basics (Carpark)
8. Sideways, Oblivion and Points Beyond (Susstones)
9. Steve Von Till, If I Should Fall to the Field (Neurot Recordings)
10. George Harrison, Brainwashed (Dark Horse/EMI)
The Wire
This welcome resume of Dimuzio's intelligent noise soundscape explorations of the past five years comprises one CD sampling his solo work, Mono, and a second of his collaborations with the likes of Chris Cutler and Fred Frith, Q-Bert, and Scott Jenerik. Dimuzio straddles interesting ground between electronic composition and noise-fest, but also smuggles in Prog rock influences. The tracks tend towards gargantuan and colourful representations of fields of pressure, more Futurist in feel than the dour orientations of post-Industrial music. Complex banks of white noise built into jet-takeoffs; magisterial displays of guitar distortion shudder the hold of a juggernaut, against the groan of giant metallic hawsers. Dense but well-defined rather than luscious, the music conjures up visionary industrial complexes and always shapes like a slowly building storm. Of the collaborations, some merely extend the solo aesthetic into pulse and texture battles with like-minded performers. More exciting are those which draw him into other kinds of aural complexity. Dimuzio's music has long caught Chris Cutler's ear and the trio here with Cutler and Frith forces him to work through their sharper and more delicate improvizational dynamic. Also illuminating is a work with performance vocalist Anna Homler, in which Dimuzio's expansive reverbrant Industrial sound weaves expressively against her nervy gestures. —Jim Hayes
Chaindlk
Thomas Dimuzio has been keeping him self busy since the late eighties, so it is almost normal that after twenty years of releases from long-time noise label RRR, the Legendary House of Misanthropy and ReR Megacorp records, he would come up with some sort of an all-star game of experimental players. Asphodel and Gench Music (sadly, I believe, a BMI branch) could not let the opportunity to release such collaborative effort pass by, so now we have a double CD, where the first disc ("Mono") is diMuzio just by himself, while the second one (dah, "Poly"!) is him with all of the following: his partner Chris Cutler (ex-Henry Cow drummer and owner of ReR Megacorp) , Nick Didkovsky, Dj Qbert, the great Fred Frith, Anna Homler, the quasi-historical Illusion of Safety, Scot Jenerik, Kadet Kuhne, Yasuhiro Otani, Radiosonde, Solid Eye, Atau Tanaka, the challenging Wobbly, the Jet Black Hair People and Zipperspy. Most songs have been recorded in different locations of the states of California and New York, which is something you might expect from the "Poly" disc but which is also true for the "Mono" disc. No matter what they might tell you, this is a record of pure experimental audio material, yes electro-acoustic, yes noise, yes avantgarde, yes musique concrete, yes ambient, yes electronic, but mainly experimental, like, for example, most of Staaplaat or Soleilmoon releases, only here just instruments (no vocals) creating aleatory soundscapes, extensive auditory illusions, screeching ethereal climaxes, droning and rumbling ambient music and floors of textures and stretching sounds. —Marc Urselli-Schärer