At the risk of suggesting anything akin to a rule, when it comes to electronic music the best ensemble work tends to add up to less than the sum of its constituent parts. Take this nearly half-hour improvised recording by Rick Reed, Cory Allen, Brent Fariss and Josh Russell, together performing as S.I.R.S.I.T. Titled “Colorblind Cycle,” it follows a hum-to-thrall path that could easily be passed off as the work of a single individual. That the often elegant mix of classic synth sounds, filtered noise and mangled field recordings never begins to approach chaos is a testament to the quartet’s mutual sensitivity (MP3).
And for all the gadgetry employed, the standout instrument may be … an amplified hamster wheel, part of Russell’s bag of tricks. He’s also credited with “zoom sampletrack, various pedals, audiomulch”; the others are on Moog (Reed), “moog synthesizer, laptop, ring modulator” (Allen) and “mixer feedback, modified field recordings, resonant filter, ring modulator” (Fariss).
More info at the website of the releasing netlabel, bremsstrahlung-recordings.org. More on Rick Reed at spectralhouse.com, Cory Allen at cory-allen.com, Brent Fariss at spectralhouse.com and Josh Russell josh-russell.org.