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"The record groove is an analog of a sound wave. Try to picture looking down on a narrow river or stream. The left bank is the left channel and the right bank is the right channel. Your turntable's stylus is a wide round raft that is going to travel that river."
Producing Great Phonographic Records [Kevin Gray]
Aut has previously released a couple of home-spun CDRs but I'm only familiar with his MP3s at .tiln. The .tiln tracks, Aut tells us, are the sounds of his domestic world recorded first-hand and ground down within the digital realm. Two in particular ('my coffeemaker' and 'pacified') hint at what you can hear on 'Home' where Aut has, in contrast, turned his attention to second-hand sounds dredged up from old records.
Rather than magnify vinyl crackle, stylus thunk or surface noise Aut lifts muffled half-phrases from the recorded material and rolls from them thick low-end (g)loops. Vestigial melodies resolve somewhere in the middle distance, unfurl slowly, linger for a little and then dissolve from view. Track 2 and the title track (which is particularly impressive) bear something of a majestic, processional, quality; both pitch a pedestrian shuffle against sustained mid- and low-range drones. At times it's soporific (or hypontic, if you like) but every track remains substantial and engaging. Heavy cream. Muddy waters.
[GM]
