Microstoria
snd
Thrill Jockeyp.o. box 476794 chicago, il60647
Release Date: 1996
Like a sound check for the Big Bang, Microstoria's snd simmers at a level just
below consciousness and leaves you teetering on the edge of an explosion.
The album's eight tracks screech, swell, hum and bubble like a cat sauntering along an abandoned Moog. Everyday sounds, from the morning alarm clock to a siren passing under a window, swirl through the tracks as if through barely boiling water. Microstoria could be brainwashing you into donating your dog to the Jehovah's Witnesses, and you'd never know. Your conscious mind would be too busy trying to figure out what that noise was or where one track ended and the next began.
If this were last summer, some important culture-purveying Hip Indie Critic would write a gushing review of snd's revolutionary post-rock sound. As Hip Indie Circle terminology changes faster than David Bowie's hair, however, the post-rock label is already passe (though it's passed right over the heads of the rest of the world), so I'll refrain from labeling it as such.
Of course, post-song would be a more apt description anyway. Tracks like "Teil Zeit" and "bpi" have no melody, no rhythm, no discernible instruments apart from the (unidentifiable, at least to these ears) electronic pantheon. You're not gonna dance to this mother. It's hard to bust a move when you're unsure when the next sound will bother to show.
On the other hand, Microstoria's defiant antistructuralism can be really rather
soothing. Notes infiltrate thought and perception; the walls look a little stranger, outside noises become just another element of the composition. Kind of like acid without the comedown or emotional baggage.
And maybe that's the point. When the sounds everyone else is making become just another part of the orchestration reaching your ears, they're not so distracting after all. Look at snd as an experiment in harmonious non-harmony. Don't turn it up or tune it out, just take it all in and learn a new definition for music.
-- Lindy Powell
powell@outersound.com
