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Cauldron Subsidence

BY Eric HillPublished Nov 23, 2009

On his second release for Echocord, Sven Schienhammer carves a groove across a variety of minimal genres, from dub-step to Berlin techno, with even a few traces of Deepchord's oceanic grain. The uneventful stretches on the early half of the album put one in the mind of delayed flights: trapped in an airport where the bustle, plus sterility, begins to conjure odd inner states. Repetitive canned phrases help reinforce this illusion. Things begin to open up on tracks like "Satisfied," which pulls an interesting phrase inversion at the halfway mark "Magic Potion" edges towards dub-step territory but with sharper punches and fewer shadows, it lets its details stay in focus. Likewise, "Pandemonium" feigns a dub pattern but evolves into an odd, African-inflected, lunging rhythm. Closer "Plateau" all but dissolves into a nebula of keyboard waves like a cityscape in morning fog. Cauldron Subsidence thrives in the flux of genres that rise and fall like tiny beat empires.
(Echocord)

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