Album Review: Thresholder by Ian William Craig

The result is a wondrous collection of tracks that, while clearly influenced by William Basinski 's fifteen-year-old Disintegration Loops (a recording constructed out of deteriorating sounds transferred from slowly de-oxidising tape), has a tactile quality of its own. Indeed, there is much in Craig's masterly work that creates a response expressed through the language of synaesthesia. The penumbra of sounds, an expansive melange that might be described as industrial-ethereal, highlights the exquisite vocals that seem to shine out like the gold of an illuminated manuscript or the startling colours of a Deccan miniature painting.

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At a glance, the music of Canadian singer and sound artist Ian William Craig may seem to hinge on a gimmick. During most of this decade, Craig's crackling drones have spilled slowly beyond the contemporary avant-garde thanks to an ingeniously seductive technique: Craig sings ribboned melodies in an arcing falsetto, then routes the sound through, beneath, between, and around pathways of customized tape machines that in turn rend, mutilate, erase, or otherwise mangle his pristine tone. It is a novel but physical effect, a hands-on approach to distortion that mirrors the visceral grip of the din it makes and tends to elicit a consistent how-does-it-work wonder.

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