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This is from a review in Signal
To Noise magazine:
William C. Harrington
Nuclear Menace
Tanatone CD
Keyboard tech for Gentle
Giant and Zappa,
briefly appearing in the Baby
Snakes vid, this guy has street cred and his third release
was mastered by Scott
Fraser, who issued the impressive Natural Histories
before working with Kronos
Quartet. Merely by those facts, though, the CD
mightn’t be what you’d expect. A cross between Craig Leon, John Wiggins, Conrad Schnitzler,
and Bill Nelson’s
later output, the disc is a cross-blend of pastiches, noodling, and
melodic miniatures with no narrative threadline nor even a seeming wisp
of intent but plenty of aesthetic pleasures, from stripped obliquities
(“Syd”) to a Riley-esque Arabian mosaic (“Rajilli: They Have the Bomb Too”)
to loopy experiments (“The
Long Descent”).
The rather abrupt shifts in setting can be a trifle disconcerting, but
one can’t help but feel it was part of the plan, instilling
an intermittent sense of sensory alienation and dislocation. Synths
comprise the majority or voices but Harrington
also plays sax and guitar while inviting several guests in. The longest
of the 15 cuts are just seconds over five minutes but “The finally Did It”
and several others prick the desire for much lengthier extrapolations.
Nothing is demanding but repeated listens begin to unfold subtleties
not immediately graspable. However, don’t invite the
neighbors over for the sound test, as they mightn’t
understand, never having quite understood why you insisted on blasting
the soundtrack to
Forbidden Planet at midnight last week.
Mark
S. Tucker
This CD is professionally
made in a shrink-wrapped jewel case.
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