One of the few labels with a personal sound, Neuma Records specializes in electronica, soundscapes and ideas of Edison and Tesla bouncing between the ears. Here’s a recent release…
You know an album has been carefully crafted when the liner notes recommend the use of headphones for listening. This album is by a conglomeration of electronics wizards namely Paul DeMarinis, John Driscoll, Phil Edelstein, David Poyurow, Prent Rogers, David Tudor and Bill Viola. Over the course of time, they put together a kind of ‘orchestra of loudspeakers”, using electronics, amplifications and various microphones and doo-dads to take Ambient Music to a new playing level.
The 68 minute opus has various “movements” to it, with a static pulse mixed with sounds akin to an electronic aviary, with tweets, chirps and warbles mixed together in a sort of tropical biosphere of sound. You can feel a sense of hovering effects melded with plugged in noodles, eventually veering into wind chimes and wind flutes, as if one were blowing into a pop bottle with gentle bells and static vibrations simultaneously moving forward and keeping still. Artificial ornithology as acoustic wallpaper.