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Reviews

Shane Latimer — Residuum
(Bandcamp Diatribe Records DIALP041, 2024, CD / LP / DL)

by Jon Davis, Published 2024-06-06

Residuum Cover art

Many people who write about music have commented about the difficulty of the endeavor. When the music is as abstract as this album by Shane Latimer, that difficulty is multiplied. Even using the term “abstract” is metaphorical — Latimer’s creation is to “normal” music as an abstract painting is to a landscape or portrait. Some of the elements of Residuum are recognizable as originating with drums or guitars or even a string trio and some clarinets, but they are assembled in a way that doesn’t involve typical musical conventions. Sometimes there’s a pulse, often there’s not; sometimes there are notes that can be identified with definite pitches, often there are not. Latimer, who had previously been known as an improvisational guitarist with the group OKO, gathered together a number of recordings of improvisations on guitar, drums, and other instruments, as well as some bits from a rejected film score pitch, then ran them through various processes to slice them up, resample them, and sequence them into completely new forms. These are soundscapes for fragmented dreams, where familiar objects appear in incongruous places. But even with the scattered nature of the sounds, most of the tracks do have a sort of flow to them, where the intensity builds and releases in ways that make sense. Latimer has said of the album, “I feel like I’ve stumbled across an extremely inefficient method of producing music.” Inefficient it may be, but the result is fascinating, and on the whole, unlike anything you’re likely to have heard before.

Filed under: New releases, 2024 releases

Related artist(s): Shane Latimer

More info
http://diatriberecords.bandcamp.com/album/residuum

 

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