#deathprod

“Composition 1” opens with the doomsday basses; long notes echo and rumble as if their very frequency might forestall fate, if even for a moment. Intimate and tactile, it provides an entry point for what follows. Sequenced and numbered chronologically as composed, the subsequent pieces extend Stern’s juxtaposition of bespoke tunings, machine tones and formal arrangement. As one listens, the ear becomes attuned to the slightest variation in sound, grains of sand in a shell, muscles racked by weight. Musically you are reminded of a church organ at its most abstract and, indeed, when compositions “8” and “9” arrive, there is a flash of recognition in the hymnal quality of the tracks, the former in the lower register, the bass notes fluttering delicately and the latter adding minor distortions to the upper notes. Thereafter, Stern builds on the emotional heft foreshadowed in the album’s opening. The decomposing delay and reverb on “11”, “12” and “13” evoke a suffocating desolation in which the organization of sound signifies defiant hope. Between each piece the quiet hum and crackle of idle machines recharging for the next surge. It ends on an elegiac note on “17” with the barest hint of a piano motif beneath oscillating sinewaves. 

Deathprod’s ability to conjure soul from his machines is key to the power of his music. If his last album 2019’s Occulting Disk seemed designed to alienate, Compositions for all its formality and repetition has a far more human aspect. Lugubrious yes, sometimes harsh but its granular beauty has a mesmeric effect that lingers.