seven

Sonic thievery, or the well-constructed audio equivalent of widely practiced collage imagery? Phil Easter is a musician working with 'recycled sound', the concept of lifting a loop from here and a melody from there and melding it all into a whole new entity. Dismembering Artists is more than an album title, it's a description of how he creates his music. Of course it doesn't hurt that he has great taste in the songs he chooses to sample.

This new release is interesting in that it predates his first two disks, "Industrial Icon" and "Industrial Meditation", though I probably wouldn't have guessed it unless the music's 1991 birth date was labeled on the sleeve. Dismembering Artists seems to have been created before Easter tapped into his more tonal, ambient side -- unlike his earlier releases most of the tracks here are rigid and percussive. Loops gradually cross fade and multiply throughout each track, densely layered and tightly bound together.

Though the recycled sound game plan may sound like a straightforward one, Easter's skillful hand at 'taking it apart, putting it back together again, and molding it like putty' is undoubtedly the ingredient that makes this music click. It's odd to think that this CD might have remained unheard, as it has for the past 9 years. It makes me wonder what else Phil has tucked away under the bed. The basic equipment he used in constructing these songs is like scissors and glue compared to what's readily available now, and the new material that's in store for us, particularly the upcoming disk from SGS side project Iron Halo Device, is worth looking forward to.