Dialing In - Ketalysergicmetha Mother CDr (2005, Celebrate Psi Phenomenon)

Dialing In is like a decades old recording of an All Night Flight on the organ from Terry Riley, falling apart in your fingertips like one of Basinski's "Disintegration Loops." Delicate piano and keyboard dirges are filtered through layers of re-recording, leaving a fully saturated spectrum and a glowing, warbly tone. Vocal coos and cries are pulled out of the air from distant numbers stations and processed through the same lo-fi low-pass filters, resulting in everything from a girgling baby in the title track, to something like Chinese opera singers in the album closer "Watch Out for Stalkers." While these thick, overprocessed incantations might lead to one to imagine the Skaters euphoric primitivism, there is nothing brutal or scary here. Dialing In creates a soft and warm space, filling the room with tone so dense, it feels like sounds filtered through the womb. The songs hiding beneath the blissful, comforting cloud of noise take cues from many influences. The simple melodies of songs like "Someone Else's Talking Pictures" and "Building It Down" can bring to mind slow pop songs like Low and Slowdive. Other songs bring in Asian influences, like the stellar "Imperfect Fifths," sounding like an Arab seance as heard from the heavens, bringing to mind Sun City Girls' Torch of the Mystics. All the songs take a heavy cue from minimalism. Some of the best songs on the album have the least going on. "Babel" opens the album with a three chord organ progression that repeats and repeats, but the great tone to the organ and the building noise around it - both from the recording technique and a vocal countermelody - create a wonderful sound to bask in. This wonderful sound that Dialing In creates through her recording technique is the key element to the album, and it is just so gorgeous and soothing. Review from Fake Jazz.

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