Perfect Failures by Ross Birdwise
review from Dusted:
Vancouver-based electronic improviser Ross Birdwise rails against spatio-temporal norms. The concepts of tempo and rhythm are malleable in his universe. Architecturally, Birdwise is Antoni Gaudí, working in fluid lines to build incomprehensible structures. With Perfect Failures, he leaps even further away from the orthogonal grid of musical construction, dissolving beats into grains of sound. The warped rhythms found on Frame Drag are divested in favor of an approach that more resembles electroacoustic composition. As a matter of fact, the title track comes on like a digital recreation of a piece of classic musique concrète. Birdwise avoids venturing into purely ambient territory yet borrows some signifiers from the genre: keyboard melodies, elongated tones, washes of sound. He overlays these seemingly innocuous elements with crashes of noise, oblique jump cuts and hyperkinetic sequences, constantly forcing us to shift focus to make sense of his soundscapes. The febrile nature of the music is what intoxicates, but the discordant melodies are what enthrall.
Bryon Hayes
https://dustedmagazine.tumblr.com/post/637867692731367425/dust-volume-6-number-13
Tracklist
| 1. | Terminal Gentrification | 2:51 |
| 2. | Vespera | 3:07 |
| 3. | Calculrelation | 3:36 |
| 4. | Perfect Failures | 4:15 |
| 5. | a/b = c/d | 4:56 |
| 6. | you can't make history if no one hears you | 4:15 |
| 7. | The Bodies of Mount Everest | 3:30 |
| 8. | the cold light of day | 1:52 |
| 9. | Decaying Skills 1-3 | 5:21 |
| 10. | a good day at the mall | 1:07 |
| 11. | minutiae | 2:30 |
| 12. | fake analog | 3:16 |
| 13. | the grumble of death | 0:24 |
| 14. | Parlour | 2:29 |
| 15. | meanwhile | 1:01 |
| 16. | somewhere else, just a little bit before | 0:40 |
| 17. | a broken clock is right twice a day | 5:04 |
