Horchata & Twine - "Resource"
(Ad Astra Records/zero 1 media 1999, CD)
Horchata & Twine - "Resource"
(Ad Astra Records/zero 1 media 1999, CD)
From Aural Innovations #20 (July 2002)
Facts:
-Horchata is Mike Palace and not to be confused with the spastic jazz/improv group Horchata from San Jose, CA
-Mike Palace collaborates with the duo: Twine
-The album title is Resource
-There are eight tracks and a total time of 69:17 on the CD
-The album combines four original pieces of work by Twine and Horchata and their respective remixes
-Year of release: 1999
Critique:
Tracks provided by Twine and Horchata inject a glitchfully dark ride into a form of electronic music that is generally unexplored by pop culture. Sounds found on Resource will remind some of the experimental exploration done by many visionaries of what is now termed avant-garde electronic music. The difference between then and now is most sounds used in contemporary productions are more easily achieved through means of recording devices and effect machines of different types and so forth. The sounds conjured in modern music were mere thoughts of estranged classical composers' minds but somehow, through ingenuity, were found and produced. But to keep focused on the album, Twine's remix of Horchata's "Wind" sounds like looped recordings of a slamming door, a stylus grating the surface of a vinyl record, quaking ground, incessant reverberated pulses and of course sounds of gusting wind as a base for the dynamic qualities of the other effects. No distinctive panning effects in this piece though there are subtle changes in the gain for the wind effect and pulses that appear to switch from left to right speaker, in stereo. As for Horchata's remix of Twine's "Sindhl," there were slight moments of digital hardcore a la Alec Empire. This would be closer to the truth if Horchata had used an old Wu-Tang Clan sample for purposes of mutilating it into another gritty sound texture to accompany the already broken and disfigured sounds looming about.
The problem seen in the entire work is that the patterns attempted may not provide a thorough interest throughout the entire CD due to certain tones becoming overused. The tone used in the more ambient-like piece, "Soil," for instance doesn't come across as having a blend of the "unusual and captivating." It seems rather dull for 3:21 where it relies on dynamically sparse effects to ride the surface of it all. Depending on why someone would listen to Resource directly affects the worth of this CD for the individual. I don't see this album as a casual listen due to a lot of the dank and repetitive sounds infused throughout the album by all of the artists on the CD but it would be a much better choice as a sound sampler given all of the sound manipulations and recycled pulses that rear their head throughout the album.
For more information you can visit the Horchata web site at: http://www.zero1media.com/horchata.
Contact via snail mail c/o Mike Palace; 90 Pine St; Portsmouth, NH 03801.
You can visit the Adastra Records web site at: http://www.adastra-records.com.
Reviewed by Rashad Salahuddin