01 Low Hill 9:30
Based in Auckland, New Zealand, Sam Hamilton works through various media, including groups such as City Peoples Farmers Music and Muffin Seeks Sunship, and film collaborations with Eve Gordon. But he's known mostly for his solo recordings, of which the nine minute "Low Hill" is a fine example. Hamilton digitally edits recordings of busy, shuffling percussion and pinging guitar harmonics into a short suite loosely held together by low, abraded drones. All the action happens thanks to Hamilton's deft editing, as he cauterises little moments of static and smears them across the dashboard. Towards the end, he starts humming along absentmindedly, inserting the auteur's presence indelibly into the frame.
The Wire
Sam's CDR contains just one nine minute piece, for which he lists guitar, voice, computer and drums, and all of these instruments are to be recognized in this strange curious piece of computerized noise, guitar strumming and playing the cymbals. There is some sort of cut-up collage like elements to be discovered here, which reminded me of thefirst solo CDs of Dean Roberts. A nice mixture of glitch music,improvisation but also in a strongly composed manner.
Vital Weekly
Just under ten minutes of minimalistic fish slapping. It's funny how droney, small buzz laptopism can still be quite striking. While at times mellow, it's full of changes and varied instrumentation. Tense trebled free drums. High freq strobes. Guitar loops interchanging. Static bursts in tiny melody. Whispers of downtempo mouth trumpets xoring the jazzerblues. Levels of crank extending like a teenage robot on a tense day at the microchip hurler.
It's easy to say, "ah, yet another laptopper." and dismiss this, but I think the effects here are applied a little more wildly. Not bombastically, but with more emotional dynamics than a glacier's chemistry in action on a winter's day, which is what so typically passes as laptop sound art in the last few years especially.
I feel scratched. It's good to hear the young NZ experimental crowd continuing to push outward and keeping the NZ noise faith alive.
Foxy Digitalis
sold out visit Sam Hamilton (here or here) & CLaudia
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