Tuesday, November 23, 2010





Imaginary Forces' most recent album, Maen Eglwys, is composed of electronic sounds. The dirty, noisy synths of early Cabaret Voltaire come to mind in a couple of the tracks; but the whole album has more of a clean, bright sound, with the synthesizers sounding like the group Cluster, without the melodies (at least on the melodic pieces). There are two distinct musical directions on this release: one tending towards synthetic washes, some pitched, some approaching filtered sound effects/natural sounds; the other direction being the more traditional electronica inspired techno beat oriented sound. My favorite pieces on the album fit into the beat type category, with Visitation and Chime being my favorites. I don't know how the drum beat on Visitation is accomplished without distortion, but it is one of the cleanest deep beats I have ever heard. It is a curious repetition that presents a somewhat dark mood. Chime is a rather pleasant ear tickler that builds gradually from a simple beat, adding elements (a chime being one of them), and then creates variations on the added elements. The t
hree pieces without a beat, create a kind of static background of anticipation...a waiting for something to happen that doesn't. I recall talking to someone a long time ago about songs that create a sort of static is-ness without reaching something like the climax of a story, but rather being itself for the time of its existence. I might go as far as to classify each piece as a little environment or background for thoughts.

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Reference:

Maen Eglwys, the words:

Maen Castle is the furthest west of all Castles in mainland England. It is within walking distance from Land's End, and is a very good example of a "Cliff" Castle, or Iron Age Promontory Fort. It is one of the oldest datable Cliff Castles in Cornwall, dating to around 500BC. Pottery shards have been found at Maen Castle covering the period 400BC to 400AD.The giant Myen Du was in legend believed to have lived here.

Eglwys means "a church" in Welsh.

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Biographical Information: Imaginary Forces (a.k.a. Anthoney J Hart) is a London based electronic music composer. His electronic music trends towards noise music and is often self released digitally as well as on Ohm Resistance and his own label, Sleep Codes.

He is currently working on his second album for Ohm Resistance as well as several other releases and a conceptual sound art piece.



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