[Reviewed by Peter Marks]
It may have taken some time to digest this but the process was undeniably worth it, this is the sound of past and present colliding with spectacular results. The background to this record can be sourced on Buried Treaure’s site but the meat of the matter is that this fellow spent a lot of time both researching and then coming up with an approximation of a device which is old, very old. To be honest, I hadn’t even heard of it and I enjoy the odder, outer reaches of modular synthesis. Jeffrey Siedler has taken me to a place which seems at once familiar and also completely alien; how this balance was achieved is beyond me but I’m grateful somebody had the will to see it through.
Those of you who have heard Black Light District’s ‘A Thousand Lights in a Darkened Room’ will take to these pieces without hesitation because there is a malevolent core to ‘Logic Formations’, one which belies it’s very title. Beyond this single comparative I can provide no further illumination from that angle, you will have to find your own way through this labyrinthine complex of tones and textures; texture is key here, the layering of multiple sound sources to achieve a cohesive flow throughout its run-time is one of the most intriguing facets to this record.
If you’re thinking this will be a pleasant, relaxing journey you haven’t been paying attention.
When one atmosphere begins to disintegrate another one seamlessly steps in to fill the breach; by turns soothing and deliriously abrasive, Siedler’s compositions move through their many elaborate set changes with a graceful aplomb. His combinations are extreme at times and yet once the initial discord has worn off, one’s ears begin to discern patterns within patterns… interlocking briefly to make up the central, supporting foundation over which he works his electronic sorcery, filling in the rest of the picture with a determined vision.
Never ones to rest on their laurels, Buried Treasure have unearthed another set of glittering images cast out of synthetics which contain a myriad of nuance; to listen to ‘Logic Formations’ is to take in a landscape which shifts and twists at a restless pace. To use archeological parlance, this sediment is sentient; the title track itself is so refined in design it would be considered weapons-grade if there was such a designation in music; the half-life alone for this sort of work could be centuries, it is guaranteed not to go quietly into the night.
Jeffrey Siedler – Logic Formations
Buried Treasure Records
DVD/CD/Digital 2018
Santa Sangre 