TRACE DECAY

DISPERSION

  1/  Circuit Open                               (Harris,Everall)              8.56
  2/  Alembic                                    (Harris,Everall)              10.17
  3/  Nostoi                                     (Harris,Everall)              9.32
  4/  Riverrun                                   (Harris,Everall)              7.26
  5/  Advocatus Diaboli                          (Harris,Everall)              11.41
  6/  Caustic                                    (Harris,Everall)              9.38
  7/  Circuit Closed                             (Harris,Everall)              5.45

          Recorded and mixed at The Box 3, Winter 1998
          Produced by Mick Harris and John Everall

John Everall: rhythm loops, basslines, found sounds, electronics, Marine Band radio signals; Mick Harris: drums, rhythm loops, basslines, found sounds, electronics.

          1999 - Invisible Records (USA), INV 141 (CD)

REVIEWS :

Mick Harris and John Everall team up to bring us a bag of mostly very long tracks with a more organic feel than late-era Scorn. Where the Weakener and Scorn's Zander and Whine seemed to focus on strictly programmed bass and beats with a kind of mad scientist precision, the Trace Decay sessions have brought out a more performance-oriented sound. Everything may well still be looped and chopped into fragmented pieces, but the pieces flow like jam sessions where the players get stuck on a note and don't want to leave. There is a distrubing sonic running throughout Dispersion that hints at a mean dissonance that never fully surfaces. In this respect, the record's greatest attribute is the feeling it leaves the listener with after it has finished.

mjeanes

..................................................

Overall impression : very good. Trace Decay brings together two longtime friends John Everall (Tactile, Spacemarker, Sentrax Records) and Mick Harris (Scorn, Lull, Quoit, Possible Records) on record. The goals of this collaboration were to draw upon the vast influences of Everall and Harris (dub, musique concrete, electronic composition, krautrock, etc) to create something of their own and to successfully combine acoustic drums with electronic sounds. With the exception of "Circuit Closed", each track has slow, very repetitious beat and bassline patterns. Harris plays drums on most but there are also electronic rhythm loops used here and there, most notably on "Alembic". The really interesting aspect of this disc is what's going on around the beats and bass : found sounds, radio signals, electronic cracklings, rumblings, washes, drones, etc ... all of the warm, inviting "background" sounds you'd expect to hear on a Lull or Tactile album. I enjoy this cd much more with headphones for that very reason, otherwise it can be tediously repetitious when I can't hear all of the subtle elements within the music. Don't expect Tactile or Scorn, expect something somewhat inbetween that draws upon each respective member's usual forte. The artwork is the drawings of Teresa Mills (Tactile). I especially like the surrealist eye/tree drawing on the inside of the cd insert, an appropriate complement to the music. "Dispersion" is definitely one of the more worthwhile releases from Invisible as of late ...

mark@southwind.net