Like a more subdued but no less enthralling companion to other precipitation-based NNM favorites like Prepared Rain and Changing Weather, this inspired split tape by instrument architects Quintron (Robert Rolston) and NYZ (David Burraston) can either cozy things up on a grey rainy day or open the sky when the earth is so parched that the ground is gasping. Side A features and is titled for Rolston’s custom-built Weather Warlock synthesizer, “which uses moisture, temperature, barometric pressure, wind speed and UV radiation to massage a major chordal drone” throughout its languid nineteen minutes. The artist’s goal of performing just enough preparation to simulate a natural process uninfluenced by human hands—”like a fire, or a lake reflecting moonlight. Constantly vibrating with change but also very still”—is a success; the track has the same comforts as a soft trickle on the roof of a tent or a bubbling brook, eternal yet unbottleable. Burraston’s “rain wire” weaves an equally soft but more active tapestry of damp static and the muffled raygun blasts as the drops hit the amplified metal string, its small sliver of the valley it stretches across somehow capturing the essence of the entire expanse. Two sides of the same puddle.
Noise Not Music 