Stephan Mathieu

The only negative thing that could be said about The Falling Rocket is that it's too much of a good thing. Over the course of nearly 90 minutes, Stephan Mathieu gently (most of the time) pummels you with the rise and fall of drones that shift and layer and coalesce and disappear, then catch you from the opposite direction, like a wave that carries you out to sea. A combination of organs, gramophones and radios provide the source material that Mathieu folds together and processes in real time, teasing out clusters of tone that are sometimes no more than a candle flicker and the full blast of sunny photosphere. Without much evidence of melody or other common musical trappings, the pieces still manage to communicate joy, dread and melancholy, making The Falling Rocket an emotional, and at times very physical, journey.