PAUL NAGLE Twilight (DDL on Nagle Music)
This release from 2012 features 44 minutes of nimble electronic music.
Here we have Nagle showing a variety of sides of his musical stylings.
In the first track, the electronics brim with infectious pep. Whether ringing with crisp resonance or throbbing with celestial presence or sliding with bouncy vivacityÑtheir conjunction incites a cheerful buoyancy with each successive chord. Equally animated e-perc is liberally utilized to emphasize this song's energized state.
The next piece explores a moodier territory, with a complexity of shuddering beats and swooping electronics conspiring with lissome piano to produce a tune of haunting impact.
Track three applies a touch of drama to the vivid techno sensibilities found here. Deeply regal pulsations bluster amid compelling rhythms, generating a sense of authority
The fourth track offers eerie effects and almost hesitant chords, quirky beats, operatic chorales, and periodic harp sweeps.
Next, we have a piece that pursues another haunting sentiment, this time employing playful piano with bouncy percussion, and an assortment of blooping electronics.
Track six adopts a more pensive attitude, as the piano and vocal crooning evoke a cerebral examination, while eccentric rhythms struggle with each other, all the while the gestalt is dogged by surprise effects which lend an unpredictability to the song. As this series of pleasant diversion continue, horn-like chord blare out and are followed by an echo that gradually infects everything.
In the last piece, Nagle combines a snappy modern flair with antediluvian cathedral chants and tosses in a twang guitar thread amid the snake-pit of twinkling electronics. Strong rhythms goad the piece along as it progressively mounts in intensity, ultimately achieving a point whereat all the elements fuse into an epic crescendo...which subsequently fades into a cloud of growling grandeur.
A well-rounded balance of peppy tunes and brooding compositions, either class designed to thoroughly entertain.
PAUL NAGLE And Darkness Falls (DDL on Nagle Music)
This release from 2012 features 62 minutes of quirky dark ambient music.
Here, the electronics pursue more abstract structures. Ghostly textures throb in the background, casting shadows across the sonic landscape, which in itself is aflutter with spry synthetic effects and chord loops. All sorts of inventive sounds are employed, from whirling rotaries to scraped metal sheets to bubbling circuitry.
Keyboards are strictly absent in this music. All the electronics are generated and controlled by the twiddling of knobs.
No traditional percussion is used here, even though the music is rich with undulating rhythms. These are achieved through the cyclic application of non-impact electronics, often reaching a particularly frenetic level of velocity as they sashay through the mix. (Okay, technically the last track does feature an assortment of natural percussive soundsÑbut they've been processed to sound bizarrely unearthly.)
One of the songs ("Contamination") was done as a tribute to the late Conrad Schnitzler. It superbly captures a spaced-out mood, seasoning the flow with blooping electronics and sparking diodes.
In fact, these compositions all serve as engaging tributes to Schnitzler's quirky electronic stylings. What initially seems to be atonal electronic pastiches are swiftly revealed as tapestries of contrasting harmonics. These vaporous threads unfurl, dogged by a series of eccentric punctuations. The "bloop" factor runs tastily high in this tuneage. Generally, these tunes evoke a somber demeanor, brooding yet laced with lively embellishments. One track (a 17 minute piece) excellently communicates this haunted flair by wandering through a variety of spooky passages.
IDEATION One Sea (DDL on Nagle Music)
This release from 2012 offers 59 minutes of spacey electronic music.
Ideation is a collaboration project between UK synthesist Paul Nagle and Pete Ruczynski (from Airsculpture).
A long track that exemplifies a tasty excursion into modern electronics with psychedelic undertones.
The electronics squeal with delight as they generate flowing sonic currents that undulate and twirl, delineating wondrous tuneage. Keyboards initiate liquid passages that seethe with clever appeal. Layers interweave to produce a glistening pastiche of surging electronics. Many of the riffs exhibit a distinctive sparkle as the chords spin into delightful cycles of heavenly definition.
A series of passages of astral beauty bewitch the listener with their cosmic luster. Sequence after sequence flow into each other, fostering a mood of energized mezmerization. Yet each passage possesses its own novel character, its own pulsating charm, presenting a string of captivating tuneage that evolves from each other to perpetuate this enduring spell.
A rhythmic presence throughout provides a light touch of locomotion; not too overt, remaining immersed so that the beats contribute softly. The e-perc is sinuous and snappy, prominent enough to inject a sense of oomph to the music without being intrusive.
This collaboration superbly displays the talents of both contributors. Their ability to perfectly mesh results in a unified stream of dreamy tuneage. These shimmering texturals laced with delicately lively keyboard riffs serve to craft some thoroughly exciting melodies.
JOINT INTELLIGENCE COMMITTEE Excession (DDL on Nagle Music)
This release from 2012 features 87 minutes of energetic electronic music.
Joint Intelligence Committee is Paul Nagle and Phil Smillie.
Complexity and high-energy mark this music.
The electronics are versatile and hyperactive, maintaining a constant flood of alluring riffs that intertwine to create a lush gestalt of sonic beauty. Keyboards guide these novel noises into shimmering melodies, captivating and dazzling.
Space guitar wails away, lending cosmic drama to the tuneage with squealing pinnacles accompanied by snarling undercurrents. Other times the guitar adopts a crisp twang of searing enthusiasm...which can erupt into a blaze of pyrotechnic glory.
Rhythms are vital here. An intricate panorama of urgent tempos are doled out to increase the music's snappy appeal. While these rhythms help move the music along, the challenging guitar and the vortex of electronics do a pretty good job on their own of generating a spry intensity.
These compositions inject a trancey form of rock into contemporary electronic music, producing tuneage of slick animation. These melodies possess a certain charm; the riffs catchy, the delivery emphatic, the resultÑinstant delight. And the astounding thing, the tunes keep getting more interesting as the set progresses, achieving several brilliant crescendos of euphoric scope.
There's also a 15 minute free track, "Changa," by Nagle at BandCamp. Check it out.
The multitalented Mr Nagle also has two novels: Bogus Focus and Headshock. Check them out.
| Entire page © 2013 Matt Howarth. All rights reserved. |
Webpage design by
 |