Greater Explosives

Greater Explosives is Toronto musician Damian Valles, and Construction is the first release by the Toronto-based upstart Music Made Be People. Packaged in hand-sewn cloth and cardboard, the album bridges the gap between analogue instrumentation and digital manipulation, drawing upon more leftfield post-rock ethics to convey its sounds. The Greater Explosives project is at its best when it turns the drum machines off and relies on the evocation of minimal guitar and synth arrangements. Valles has a flare for looping wistful melodics and unexpected curiosities like out-of-tune guitar, as he does on "Even Odd Numbers Don’t Add Up.” There are a lot of ideas at work here, some worthwhile and others in need of tweaking. As the Greater Explosives project continues, Valles will most likely come to terms with the explicit sonic direction he wants to pursue. For now, there certainly is a lot of potential here to cultivate. And Music Made By People could yet prove to be a valuable asset to Toronto’s under-appreciated experimental electronics community.