Swirlings [Vinyl]

The full scope of his wide-ranging experiments in synthesis and electronic arrangement encompasses everything from expansive new age drift exercises, to purely textural noise sculpting, to the strain of post-Berlin School cybernetic prog composition that characterized newer albums like Through The Portal (Phinery, 2016) and Digital Rainforest (Beer on the Rug, 2015). Swirlings, his frst full-length LP on Hausu Mountain, follows a split release with Brett Naucke (HAUSMO53, 2017), and albums on labels like Immune, NNA, and Constellation Tatsu. Swirlings fnds Pulse Emitter tempering his more recent melodic streak with a host of time-distorting compositional strategies from the ambient and drone traditions, yielding a hybridized vision of his music that spans distinct eras and styles of his output. Taken in the context of his cosmic song titles and long-standing incorporation of sci-f themes and imagery, the album bears the outward signs of the ambient record that seeks to evoke the experience of deep space travel, or observing a lush garden of alien fora from the deck of a starship. Groetsch orna- ments his gorgeous harmonic whirlpools and majestic spreads of smeared drones with layers of crystalline melody and fourishes of granular processing. His pieces stretch through minimal expans- es in which individual pads and bass notes sketch out a churning rhythmic grid before blooming into mosaics of interlaced arpeggios and lead voices. Pulse Emitter approaches electronic composition from the perspective of a master craftsman, harnessing a fne-tuned sense of narrative development and a penchant for juxtaposing contrasting synth voices from far-fung corners of his arsenal of softsynths, app-based programs, and hardware instruments. While he conjures time-lapse vistas of galaxies and nebulas in our mind’s eye, the sophistication of his arrangements and the universal beauty of his harmonies pushes the lens inward on the self, result- ing in a journey that is as personal and i