OK so its half one in the morning again and I’ve only been home half an hour again. This time the entire public transport system of the UK decided to grind to a complete halt as we have had the heaviest snow here I’ve seen for a few years, about six inches in a couple of hours. getting home wasn’t easy, and I am now cold, wet and tired. But id I listen to some music today? Oh yes… sitting about on railways stations for hours on end at least gives me plenty of iPod time, although I did also listen through to this album via the stereo this morning before leaving for work, and it is playing again now as I type. The manner in which I have been listening to this disc is probably quite important to mention.

It is an album called Memory Stick by a duo named 212code, released on the Modisti netlabel, which offers the music for free download here. I was sent a DVD case containing a 4:1 quadrophonic recording of the material, which sadly I cannot play here, but also a CDR burn of the music as a stereo mixdown, which is what I have been listening to. Although I think I am correct in saying that the 212 area code refers to Manhattan, New York, I’m not sure where the two musicians here Maerran Laginestra and Pedro Lopez currently reside. In fact I don’t know much about them at all. The press release that accompanied the package provided a link to a website for 212code, but it is not active. So beyond the fact that both musicians seem to work with computer processing of soundfiles, I know little else.

The blurb at the Modisti site claims that the music attempts to “revise the condition of the human voice”, which seems like something of a grand claim from where I am sitting, but certainly much of this music, which resembles a kind of modern digital musique concrete makes a lot of use of samples and fragments of human voices, either talking, whispering, screaming or singing. The five tracks that make up this half hour long album are mostly dense, heavily layered collages of sound, some human voice, treated heavily in some places, less so in others, alongside a mix of recorded clatter and digitally processed detritus. There is a very strong sense of the cinematic here. I suspect that listening to this music on a 4:1 system could be a great experience, as the sounds fly in and out fast with a tremendous feel of spatial awareness. The music itself is mostly based around small pockets of drama, voices laid over one another, tinny chimes, a spot of birdsong, a ‘plane passing close by overhead, all very nervous and chattery, things moving quickly, sudden slams of sound ending one passage and opening another, scurries of computerised scribble charging off at odd tangents.

While the concrete feeling is strong, (The voices remind me occasionally of Lionel Marchetti’s 1992 gem Mue) the work of Helena Gough springs to mind as a stylistic companion, massed details  carefully placed on top of each other so as to allow the music to really bombard the senses. While the last of the five pieces is more open and paired back, the other four tear past your ears with a feeling of dark, moody danger. There is a sinister feel to it all, as if we are listening to the soundtrack to an odd Lynchian horror movie. The music is all well put together as well, there are clearly a lot of manhours gone into its construction, and in some places the juxtapositions of different sounds in the music really work very well indeed, creating jarring clashes and a sense of menacing anticipation that I like a lot.

While maybe Memory Stick (and I have no idea why it has that title by the way, no memory sticks seem to be involved) could be thought of as a part of a long heritage of this kind of music it also sounds very current, with no attempt made to hide the laptoppery involved in the music’s creation. It isn’t all that original, and here and there it does slip into the entirely predictable, but this isn’t always a bad thing. The music builds into little crescendoes of busy activity and the power of the music often comes through the anticipation of these little explosions, so even though there might not be much new going on here it retained my interest. At least, it did for the first four tracks, the last, calmer, simply constructed piece, based mostly on voice fragments over short but high pitched tones doesn’t quite have the same energy.

While I can’t help but think that listening to this through four dedicated speakers would enhance the drama of the music no end, it is still a good listen when heard through just the two channels. its free as well, so go download it if it sounds like your cup of tea.