Disquiet

This delicate collaboration between Aymeric de Tapol & François Martig has extended periods of held tones, like a phone call cut off or a distant foghorn. There’s one such moment early in the three-track EP’s final cut (“Ijslandgnol,” MP3) and on first listen it may seem static, but in fact it slowly — ever so slowly — gets louder, rising as a result in intensity, before more natural sounds emerge, small rustlings that suddenly emphasize the foreground. Such is the music on Nord/Est, which ranges from microsonic simplicity to lush, evocative drones, more like soundtracks to mundane journeys than like songs. Among the duo’s listed resources are computers, analog synthesizers and the Buddha Machine, the latter of which is less immediately recognizable here than in any previous re-use I’m familiar with. Get the full set at adozen.org, where it is the netlabel’s seventh release.

By Marc Weidenbaum