12″ White Label vinyl + 320 kbps MP3 download of the tracks
Cut by Jason @ Transition
Track listing:
Side A: Quanta of Light l 19:24
Side B: Quanta of Light ll 21:35
The fifth in the series of limited edition vinyl in the Tone 45 series. 100 copies only are available in the TouchShop…
Artist’s note: the distortion on the run in groove on side a is intentional…
Reviews:
Norman Records (UK):
Ahh yes another of those limited edition Touch white label LP’s, this time from long-time favourite Daniel Menche. The grooves on the vinyl are so fine that I though both sides were blank to begin with! Thankfully that’s not the case, where dropping the needle onto the grooves has Daniel masterfully harnessing the frequencies with total control. Essentially this is very heady extended drone music done properly, gradually building until it becomes foggy and fuzzed up. Later on it sounds like there may be some organ drones in there but I can’t be sure. I could just happily lie on the floor right now and temporarily make the world go away. A total bliss-out and not as aggressive as a lot of his catalogue and may even appeal to followers of Tim Hecker and the like.
Touching Extremes (net):
Probably the most “symphonious” release ever by Menche, with particular reference to the introductory section of this 12-inch vinyl which, seemingly, takes off from an interfusion of unquiet orchestral strings and what sounds like a graveyard-based male choir. However, a wrong move is trying to typecast the artist’s output, often (always?) verbally imprisoned inside the noise/drone domain in the notion of just everybody (the very prime mover calls himself a “noise exploiter” on his Bandcamp page, also tagged with “dark drones”). There’s much to be relished, as Quanta Of Light demonstrates, in terms of compositional savvy and ability to achieve indelible consequences in the audience’s mental frame. Menche’s tactics for synthesizing sources permit the detection of nuances that are both existent and incorporeal, but definitely leave clear-cut traces in the encephalon.
Psychoacoustics of the highest level are at work, the music’s (apparently) static temperament disclosing a bottomless pit of parabolic clusters and sloping hellish chants. This is specially valid – as hinted above – in the first side, a literal milepost of aligned hosannas to the power of accumulated tones, coarse-grained or less. The second half is a little more “consonant”, so to speak, and appears to spring up from overlapping harmonium chords gathering timbral muscle and annihilative predominance with the passage of minutes. Still, if a lone reason exists to get a copy of this album, that lies in the awesome opener, among the all-time finest eruptions discharged by the Oregonian adventurer.
