r e s o u r c e

This remix album of sorts pits lo-fi blipmeisters Twine and Horchata against each other as they remix the same source material with varying results. Although twine can adeptly milk a Teutonic groove, Horchata's efforts consistently come out on top, as they cultivate an intricate minefield of glitches and skips while layering skeletal melodies upon them.  Unfortunately, Twine's efforts don't live up to the promise of their debut album, Reference; they rely too often on better living through repetition, drilling most of their good ideas into the ground.  Here's hoping that Twine regain their focus in the future while keeping a close eye on Horchata's next step.

Bill Cohen
 

To this remixing event, Ohio duo Twine brings two new pieces 
and Horchata (a.k.a. Michael Palace) delivers a pair of selections from 
Integral. These contributions are swapped and re- and/or de-constructed, 
yielding the eight total pieces of Resource.

Venturing into semi-noisy realms of processed beats and experimental 
ambiance, the gritty electronic excursions are at times broken down 
into almost-microscopic audio-atoms.

There's something sweetly melancholy about Soil (3:21) by Horchata; blunted
musical twinkles find their way through flatly floating haze, almost inaudible
voices and rippling digital grit. A muffled rhythm and vaporous musical tones
flow and echo through Center (remix), often adorned with glitches. Subtle
mid-tempo beats fade in as everything gels and swirls slowly before entering
more chaotic territories, then returning to smooth/glitchy. A softly aggressive
pattern pumps Twine's Sindl with energy, around which various microscopic
elements collect. Beats set in, though are suffused in digital processing effects
which (quite nicely) render them with a rough-edged corrosion. 

Though breezing in at first, Horchata's Wind eventually picks up plenty of
abrasive fluctuations, thinning again near the close to radiate warmer tones.
Wind (remix) comes in stronger, and is more immediately subjected to
assorted audio tortures (in the form of record-skip screetches and other caustic
sweeps), backed by a continually cycling train-like clatter. Twine's original
Center is agreeably more straightforward in its rhythmic pulse and syncopation,
though still awash in dreamy effervescence and tiny, rippling vocal-like
fragments. The track gains power toward its end, relinquishing it to drift to a
close. 

In Sindl (remix), the previous form seems to be digitally boiled down into
particles, then reshuffled, pounded upon and pulverized into a broken,
weathered mosaic, some pieces of which are only scattered dust. The shortest
track becomes the longest remix by hyperextending some elements (the droning
haze) and adding others (grand piano sounds), resulting in something both
isolationist and elegant. Vocal snippets, though buried, are clearer in Soil
(remix) (22:14) and the pace is much slower. About nine minutes in, the piano
fades and electronic ruffling intrudes, followed by scritchy waves and a
reappearance of a repetitive piano pattern, which receives occasional visitations
by various forms of audio grunge which faintly override as the notes (and
everything else) gradually fade away. 

Combining rhythmicism and electronoise with somber gray
tones and digital disintegration, Twine and Horchata's sounds
are close enough to maintain a balanced sense of cohesion
(despite often-drastic deconstructionism) within the originals
and reconstructions. Overall, 8.7-rated Resource offers
compelling listens and an interesting chance to compare the
first version with the altered second draft. 
 

GridfaceMusic

by Jacob Arnold

(This review is also at Armchair DJ.)

Resource
AdAstra/Zero 1 (USA), 1999
Resource is a unique collaboration bringing together abstract ambient experimentalists Horchata and Twine, each of which contributed two tracks that were remixed by the other.  Both the original tracks and the remixes are included on this release, allowing the listener to witness the different interactions between the two artists. Horchata's "Soil" and "Wind," both taken from its Integral album, are the quieter, more contemplative tracks on the album, and Twine's remixes of them provide some of Resource's best moments, particularly the album-closing remix of "Soil," which  begins as an off-kilter but recognizable version of the original and eventually collapses into a quiet drone.  Twine, unlike Horchata, contributes two new tracks, "Sindl" and "Center," both of which are much more abstract and noise-based than the group's debut album, :resource:. Horchata takes these tracks even farther out there to a point that ambient listeners may be uncomfortable with (that's Horchata's CD player skipping, not yours). Altogether, Resource is a very interesting concept that, for the most part, works. Twine and Horchata are both artists whose previous works have demonstrated a willingness to explore, and  by allowing them to feast on each other's sounds, this release expands the scope of their explorations.