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](http://www.fet-press.com/releases/fet017/). 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](http://sethchrisman.com/). More from McLaughlin, also from Hudson Valley, at [nathanmclaughlin.info](http://www.nathanmclaughlin.info).