MAIN

Mort Aux Vaches: Exosphere

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Boomkat Product Review:

Robert Hampson or Main to his fans has always been an artist to keep a close eye on. With his initial forays into experimental electronics bubbling out of the ether in the mid 1980s as Loop, he's a man with a rich and detailed past and has collaborated with the likes of Jim O'Rourke and Godflesh and recorded for such labels as Fat Cat, Beggars Banquet and Touch. Initially his works as Main (along with ex-member Scott Dowson) were experimentations with the sound of guitar, one could say a pre-Fennesz deconstruction of guitar music, yet as time has passed Hampson has become more and more concerned with using field recordings as his primary source material. Exosphere is no exception and uses recordings made on short trips to airports/hotels/train stations -Hampson manages to deconstruct, decompose and remould the recordings into something intricate and riveting from beginning to end. Moving toward a sound explored by early electronic academic folks such as Jean-Claude Risset or Bernard Parmigiani we are treated to Main's version of musique concrete, a truly ear bending experience with textures ranging from the ear splitting to the warming, and the entire record is underpinned by a sense of familiarity which probably stems from the unusual source material. Highly engaging and probably the best work from Hampson in a long while, this is another stunning addition to Staalplaat's Mort Aux Vaches series.

MP3 Release (6)