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Lopside:
37
The requisite back story: A friend, tired of being unable to maintain contact, gives Dean Hinds a used pager. The used pager malfunctions and is filled with thirty-seven messages composed of electronic beeps, pops and general noise. Using these messages both as inspiration and source, Hinds crafts a new Lopside album: 37. The result: 37 is ten tracks of wide-open and well-crafted electronic ambience. Like most ambient music, the focus here is on texture; and though its roots in an electronic communication malfunction might suggest otherwise, these aural blends often end up agreeable and comforting. An additional feat of 37s production is that, unlike many lesser electronic ambient works which are looked upon more as a whole, many of these tracks stand out individually, maintaining a feel and personality of their own, rather than being lost to the overall movement of the album. Some tracks, such as To the Point of Obscurity, seem to be focused more on the blending of the atmospheric textures, including organic percussion, sweeping harmonic backgrounds and cut-up vocals. Other tracks are more focused on the strength of the beats, better lending themselves to a wider audience. Saturday Driving Music is a good example of the latter variety and its title perfectly captures the feeling of wide-open expanse that the albums sounds evoke. While some electronic musicians uses space as a means to isolate the listener, Lopside uses it to free them, while the drums, which sound familiar and casual rather than distorted and alien, propel the listener through the open landscapes Lopside creates. 37 is just one of the most recent in a string of great experimental and avant-garde electronic releases that Left Off the Dial has received for review this year. It is very exciting to be hearing new music from artists who are still expanding the territories of electronic music. I wholeheartedly recommend 37 to both longtime fans of electronic ambient and those who have recently found it through the more slightly accessible sounds of pastoral IDM such as Manitoba, Boards of Canada and Four Tet.
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