Whatever format we might prefer our music served on, what is presented is a recording with a very specific focus whittled down from infinite options. It might be to communicate a very particular message or story, the way certain sounds tie together, or in the case of Material + Object’s startling new album Telepath, how much can be extracted and built on, from a fairly simple and straightforward sonic source.
The basis for this new album by the Australian musician, Andre Ruello, who works under the name Material+Object, are recordings of a violin. This source material doesn’t feel like a performance in itself, more a simple showcasing of the range of sounds and sonic characteristics that instrument produces. Plucked precise moments, long thick drones, momentum, drama, a sense of ancient, classical and folky flavours, and all somehow wrapped up in beautiful and exacting electronic precision.
What’s so immediately compelling about Telepath is that these sonic building blocks then become the basis for all sorts of processed and embellished sounds in a dizzying rapid-fire stew.
Each of Telepath’s 9 tracks map out how the violin sound can become a key element in different settings. We get invited into this world with the subtle 10 minute opener – Enter placing pizzicato foregrounds against a swirling dreamy fog of weeping strings, and then, the hanging ambience of Glyh…
But it’s the stunning 15 minutes of Hyphae where the magic really opens up. Clearly the track’s based on the long branching root like threads of fungi of the same name. Here, the music similarly maps out a network of pathways and interconnections that thrive on infinite variety from a single point of origin.
Trnsform breaks the source sounds down into shards of electronic abstraction, whilst Blip seems to open up new worlds out of minute string plucks. x6x morphs between flying saucers zooming overhead and the bleary space rock of Ash Ra Tempel.
Thermo could also become a folky jig if it wasn’t continually buckled and pecked by detailed embellishments. The closer Exit, feels like the same captured instant slowly seeping out into the galaxy…
In many ways the sleeve highlights the overall, concept. A small garden that perhaps only required one ornament, but instead cloning and variations have resulted into a hyper version of reality. The temptation to copy and paste indiscriminately has a certain manic appeal. Colours can be made extra vibrant, and unreal. At what point does this power to replicate, expand, and cut into, hit some sort of limit? How much is too much?
Telepath ultimately takes something pure and straightforward and delights in a richly detailed study in how much can be extracted from a relatively simple source. Whilst it revels in moments of complete saturation, it’s an amazing and hugely enjoyable adventure through the hurricane that came about from one solitary butterfly flapping its wings…
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