review :: Royce Icon
What possesses so many experimental artists to take a minute of audio and loop it for over a hour? Are they all just doing a lot of acid? Is there some "we must make a long, amazingly repetitive album" new age cult that I haven't heard of? Maybe I'm just wearing blinders, but I can't see why you would make an album of such a redundant nature intentionally. Maybe it's more "soothing" or "calming" for some people to just hear the same looped sound, but I'm not one of those people. I prefer audio with some amount of change in it, at least a few progressions here or there.
It just seems lazy to me, and sad, considering that the minute of sound here is actually pretty cool. A sample of sea lions barking and grunting, splashing in the water and whatnot,
it would of been pretty cool if a lot of other found sounds and electronics came into the mix, slowly shifting to different places and soundscapes. But no. You get no evolution here, no change at all. The same barking sea lions and the same slight modification (contrary to what the back of the case says, nothing here is heavily processed) keep going on and on and on. If repetitive ambience is your thing, then this Mission Hypnotic disc may really get your juices flowing. As for me, I'd rather just listen to the humming of my fish tank and refrigerator, as those sounds change every now and then.
