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D.RHĆNE - III (EXODE) (CDR by Subterranean Tide)
Labelboss Mathias van Eecloo works as D.rhƶne, and Subterranean Tide releases his album. The cover is quite dark, but the website provides the same information, so it's here I learn that he uses "acoustic guitar, amplified objects, bow, clarinet, concertina, breathe(s) on tape(s), effects devices, electric guitar, field recordings, gamelan, gongs (cambodia), harmonium(s), indonesian flute, kanun loopers, music box(es), pedals devices, piano, samplers, strings, voice(s), xylophone, zither(s)" - that is a lot. Five pieces here last exactly ten minutes and one second, while the opening lasts five minutes and five seconds and the closing piece five minutes and fifty-one second. Odd indeed. Does time dictate the music I wonder? This works in pretty much the same territory as Xu, but D.rhƶne spaces his music more out, takes more time and does a little bit less. Whereas Xu wants to work within the realms of a song structure, D.rhƶne works more with notion of a 'piece'. Maybe a semantic difference, but a valid one. You could as easily see the seven untitled pieces as one long piece, with just a bunch of silence thrown in - sometimes at the beginning. D.rhƶne is also, at very few times, a bit more noise oriented, or improvised, such as in the fourth part. While this had some excellent music I think I preferred Xu to this one. Xu sounded more organized and coherent, while D.rhƶne has the tendency to wander about a bit too much for my taste. But nevertheless not a bad release either. (FdW)