The RVNG imprint is at it again, unearthing essential work from another unheralded sonic pioneer. Kerry Leimer is a Canadian-born but Seattle-based dream weaver who — after discovering Faust and Cluster — collected synths and tape machines, taught himself to use them, and concocted uncanny soundscapes totally out of place within the Pacific Northwest of the 1970s. He eventually founded the Palace of Lights label to reveal the music that he and a small cabal of like-minded individuals were producing, working in near-obscurity.
Last year, RVNG released A Period of Review, a collection of Leimer's solo material that demonstrated his deft blend of new age synthesis and avant-garde tendencies. His work with Savant — a band that featured Palace of Lights artist Marc Barreca, OP Magazine's John Foster and a host of other experimental and post-punk musicians, collected here on Artificial Dance — deviates significantly from his solo material with its near-industrial polyrhythms and emotionally charged vocal samples. (Camberwell madmen This Heat immediately spring to mind as an ensemble producing a noise somewhat analogous to that of this malleable yet highly capable crew.)
Compiling Savant's debut 12-inch, sole full-length LP and a heap of unreleased material, Artificial Dance is an extended glance at one side of Leimer's oblique sonic outlook, one which is as wonderful as it is weird.
(RVNG Intl.)Last year, RVNG released A Period of Review, a collection of Leimer's solo material that demonstrated his deft blend of new age synthesis and avant-garde tendencies. His work with Savant — a band that featured Palace of Lights artist Marc Barreca, OP Magazine's John Foster and a host of other experimental and post-punk musicians, collected here on Artificial Dance — deviates significantly from his solo material with its near-industrial polyrhythms and emotionally charged vocal samples. (Camberwell madmen This Heat immediately spring to mind as an ensemble producing a noise somewhat analogous to that of this malleable yet highly capable crew.)
Compiling Savant's debut 12-inch, sole full-length LP and a heap of unreleased material, Artificial Dance is an extended glance at one side of Leimer's oblique sonic outlook, one which is as wonderful as it is weird.
