Disquiet

“Whereas the Limmat runs deep and fast and appears rather pure in its composition, the Sihl plunders along slowly, is comparatively shallow and interspersed with a good number of rocks jutting through its surface, small whirlpools and random clumps of tall grass.” That’s musician Jason Kahn describing the two rivers that passed by an old studio of his in Zurich, Switzerland, where he lives. Kahn titled his recent record after the latter, and if the free download at the Sirr Records website (MP3) is any gauge, then the Limmat must truly be a quick-running waterway; the sample Sihl MP3, apparently the album’s fourth track, is a rapid flurry of percussive swells and a jittery line of tapped out chimes. Two additional Sihl cuts, housed at Kahn’s website, are no less energetic. The album’s sixth (MP3), a rising and falling drone, has no specific downbeat, but its underlying waveform and overall intensity are anything but languid. And the album’s eighth (MP3) is similarly upbeat, with a whirring purr above a light patter of metallic sounds. According to Kahn, the primary components of the album are percussion and analog synthesizer. More info at sirr-ecords.com and jasonkahn.net.

By Marc Weidenbaum