connect_icut: Small Town by the Sea

Superb experimental album. Gentle, entrancing electronic music. The sounds of nature—birdsong, running water—are superimposed on top of gentle repetitive beats and electronic tapping, whirring, buzzing. Nature combined with electronica. The title of the first song, “Bird Internet,” is very apt.

Human voices appear sometimes, heavily distorted and edited down into rhythmic little bites. One begins to think of them as an artificial sound, for better or for worse.

connect_icut is a veteran electronic artist, debuting in 2005. He’s a native of Vancouver, which is the “small town by the sea” referred to in the album title. The title, by the way, is perfect. The album is intimate, just like a small town, and beneath the surface of every song is the sound of the ocean.

I recommend 1 and 4, but if you like those, try listening to the whole thing. FCC on track 2.

1) ** “Bird Internet” (8:12): Someone half-whistling, half-breathing; mechanical whirring and twittering. Birds singing in the background. Electronic sounds begin to assert themselves a bit more around 5:30, always gently. Delicate, complex, mellow. Entrancing.
2) “Tennis Players” (6:20): FCC: SHIT Bird sounds continue for about a minute. Then a strict mechanical beat enters, and a distorted voice. The almost-robotic voice sings strictly segmented lyrics over what sounds like shattering glass, water tinkling on glass. A more rigid feel to this one, harsher, more adversarial.
3) “Bathroom Mirror (Smash Patriarchy)” (5:37): In the beginning: the sound of running water. On top of that we have very gentle electronic sounds.
4) ** “74 Guitars” (5:18): Mechanical clicking and clacking sounds…what I imagine it sounds like for a gun to be assembled. Someone brushes an acoustic guitar. Very fragmented electronic sounds: insect sounds, or someone clacking dice together in their first. A guitar riff emerges as part of the soundscape at around 3:30.
5) “Big Siobhan” (5:48): Space-agey sounds, very mechanical, unrelenting. Distorted human voices saying nothing at all. An agitated, tense track, with gentle whirring underneath.
6) “Cat Town” (11:29): The sound of a rake being dragged across sand. Gently interlocking electronic rhythms. We end with the sound of water running up and down a beach.

--Mr. Tumnus