This split release of half-hour tracks from Seth Chrisman and Nathan McLaughlin pairs elegant, rural electronics with a slightly noisier, certainly more feral counterpart. It’s a mix of field recordings, substantively muffled instrumentation, and thorough filtering by the like-minded if not entirely similar musicians. Chrisman’s piece, “Topographies,” is the musical equivalent of the sound of a forest floor that you’re walking alone. It combines motoric textures and light bits of string tension. McLaughlin’s, “Surface Noise,” eventually resolves to something close to Chrisman’s, but it starts with a jolt that it never quite shakes. It adds a sense of threat to the proceedings. If Chrisman’s is a walk in the great outdoors, then McLaughlin’s suggests that the listener may also be the prey.
Album originally posted at fet-press.com. It’s the latest release from FET, which is led by Joe Houpert and McLaughlin.vMore from Chrisman, who’s based in Hudson Valley, New York, at sethchrisman.com. More from McLaughlin, also from Hudson Valley, at nathanmclaughlin.info.