Since the Downstream “free music” department on Disquiet.com debuted, in October 2003, there have been some 140 or so individual entries. They’ve ranged from single downloadable MP3 files to entire streaming live performances, from tidy EPs to extended DJ gigs. And somehow, during all that time, the work of the nexsound.org netlabel has gone unrecognized, despite the fact its most recent release, Violet‘s three-track Electrolux, is by (most) appearances its 31st. (The label’s numbering system is a little unclear, since release number 26, attributed to the late Muslimgauze, and number 10, co-credited to Francisco Lopez and Andrey Kiritchenko, are still listed under “upcoming.”)
In any case, this unfortunate website oversight is easily enough rectified, since Electrolux‘s three tracks, each between about 14 and 17 minutes in length, are eminently recommendable: long stretches of free-form, song-less, sounds-for-sounds’-sakeness — not so much a swarm of drones as a care package of industrial ambience. Now, a lot of modern electronic music gets described offhandedly as next-generation campfire tunes, given the homespun quality that so much laptop-derived work exudes — not to mention the general electronica emphasis on musical rudiments like beats, and the popularity these days of sampled acoustic guitar — but so much of Electrolux (which lacks beats and guitar) truly sounds like spare parts left out in the open, if not to burn then at least to rust. Hence the Violet EP’s fibrous sonics, numb chimes, bent metal, chilling distant hums and, on the opening track, moan of a wounded beast. Violet is a pseudonym for Jeff Surak, who runs the Zeromoon label (more on that at a later date). Download the Electrolux set here, and learn more about Violet on the Zeromoon website, here.