Gerritt Wittmer | Creation Stories
Misanthropic Agenda (CD/DL)
Simultaneously released with Houston-based Gerritt Wittmer‘s I Believe LP comes a disc of mixes by Richard Durham, Francisco Meirino, Names, G9 and Wittmer himself – called Creation Stories. Oh, and there is a thirty-fine minute piece that is unmarked on the package by an unknown artist as well, all mastered by Italian artist Giuseppe Ielasi. The disc opens with Wittmer’s short Unknown. A funky electronic piece made up of a thump beat, a bit of tom toms and vocal treatments that seem to balance tribal with a blue movie-like choking sound. It’s a strange overture.
Gerritt Wittmer‘s I Believe (Misanthropic Agenda)
This is followed by the duo Names and Out Alone. With a low rattle, a mellow drone passage and broken narrative interjections that sound as if they are coming from a walkie talkie. I think I can make out “time is alive, tomorrow isn’t coming“. The crackle and circumstance create a perfectly ill-at-ease feel. Speaking of which, Tomorrow Isn’t Coming is the very next track by Francisco Meirino. It bounces with a tape loop that pings like a drunken sailor. The piece starts to self-destruct by way of industrial detritus falling from an unknown vantage point. “There’s no time for tears now, tomorrow isn’t coming….” The track oozes an uncertain doom with the toll of the bell and a whole lot of squiggly micronoise.
Nothing Matters by G9 follows. It’s an internal battle between a bright 60s-like pop track with an irritated foreground of grainy effects and feedback. It sounds like one of those ubiquitous Dalek’s from Doctor Who to be honest, but the Beach Boys-like crooner who sings “no chance for me” is the central component. Newcomer Richard Durham brings a funky minimal techno vibe to Ascension. It still has the grey area of darker shades, but grows some freeflowing tendrils of melody that subdue the shadows. It’s as light as air in the second half which is the perfect set-up for the extended conclusion.
The last (and unlisted) track is titled Secrets as it pops up in the download however the artist is unknown. SPOILER: It’s almost complete silence — except we are experiencing a serious set of scattered thunderstorms here — and even though it’s external noise interfering and making for strange bedfellows with this stillness it’s not until at about twenty-five minutes in a voice loop states simply, “time is a lie“. Repeating ad nauseum like a broken breakbeat sample for the remaining ten minutes, with a single embedded skip. In the last three minutes a second repeated and blurred sample sort of mocks in endless repetition, and things begin to serious decompose after that. The track is really only about ten minutes, embedded deeply and who doesn’t love a secret track. The impatient virtual society we’ve built over this last decade or so, that’s who. I for one, can stand the test (without fast/flash forwarding). Another time reference 😉 There is a ghost in the works.
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