Chronic Art (FR)

Stil. is nothing less than the 32nd long format in Taylor Dupree’s 9 years of electronic activism. In other words, this album is the only solo project of this hyper-active thirty-something in 2002…after three albums in collaboration with Frank Bretschneider (Balance, Mille Plateaux), Kim Cascone and Richard Chartier (After, 12k) and Kenneth Kirschner (Post_Piano, Sub Rosa). While bearing the influence of Hiroshi Sugimoto’s series of seascapes where nature is photographed as if it was petrified, out of the time, Stil. remains true to the minimalist precepts: the composer explores repetitive melodic canvases/outlines along four long slack pieces in order to uncover new sound stratas teeming with minute variations. But this ambient record goes one step further as at the same time, Deupree, rather than hiding the microstructure (sound loops) of his pieces, deliberately exposes it by choosing motives long enough (in the order of a tenth of a second) to be caught. Hence this feeling of ‘hearing’ a fine hail. Hence also this collision between Stil. and Frozen Water, an installation by Carsten Nicolai where low frequencies go through two stretches of water, making the audible visible: the vibration of air particles on a water surface changed into liquid and quivering mesh. By its emotional power and the purity/clearness of its sound, Stil. is, to be even more explicit, a great record, of the might of the crystalline Die Entdeckung des Wetters by Stephan Mathieu (Lucky Kitchen).