The brisk, efficient minimalism of Thomas Brinkmann reaches an elegant sustain on “Agent Orange,” a track off the forthcoming *What You Hear (Is What You Hear)*, dedicated to the late Zbigniew Karkowski and due out on May 25. (There’s an extra “w” on the Mego site. Maybe that’s a transliteration thing, or just a spelling error?) The track is a slowly driving assemblage of dense, singular sound, like a mass of brutalist concrete read from the distance as a graphic score, like bug noise reiterated by drastic machinery, like a single helicopter blade inspected in an anechoic chamber. The result is fortifying, the sheer singular motif a marvel of industrial nuance.
Track originally posted at [soundcloud.com/editionsmego](https://soundcloud.com/editionsmego/thomas-brinkmann-agent-orange), the account of the Editions Mego label. More on the record at [editionsmego.com](http://editionsmego.com/release/EMEGO-204). Here, by the way, is my 2000 interview with Karkowski, who died in 2013: [“Sounding Floor.”](https://disquiet.com/2000/10/29/sounding-floor/)