Mark Fell

There is a blend of fine art and science in Mark Fell's work more easily described with wave charts and white spaces than words. Somewhere in between Alva Noto and Ryoji Ikeda, we find the clean precision of his tonal impacts. In his late '90s/early '00s work as SND, Fell helped define Mille Plateaux's ethos for minimal electronics. Multistability, released in a one-two pop alongside UL8 on eMego, shares similarities with those albums, but at times, feels almost like a periodic table of their elements. Many of these tracks consist of arithmetic groupings of beats and timbres arrayed to describe music's building blocks rather than actually being music. The element of time is in frequent fluctuation to create constant resets in pattern and purpose. The resultant disorientation is startling given the apparent simplicity of the sound. This isn't recommended for driving or other brain-dependent physical activities, but is exciting and provocative while at rest.