Tim Catlin - Radio Ghosts

23five
011

The circlet of intertwined steel strings on the front cover of Tim Catlin’s new disc is an apt illustration of the guitar-generated dronage found within. How much affinity the listener will find with the music depends a bit on how satisfied s/he is with just the drones since, by and large, that’s how things are presented here.

There’s a certain amount of fascination to be found with the sounds themselves. On the first two cuts, Catlin employs only an acoustic guitar, presumably enhancing its output with vibrating devices of some sort resulting in tamboura-like, jangly drones with back layers of smoother hums. The texture, grainy and bumpy, is the main attraction because, simply put, that’s all there is, the variation between elements of less interest than the overall “feel”. Personally, I found these tracks lacking enough richness to really maintain interest, though I can easily imagine others happily lolling in the mesh. The emergence of the electric guitar on tracks 3-5 comes as a bracing tonic, a clarity of intent that’s quite attractive. Its ringing tones immediately recall Branca’s “The Spectacular Commodity” from his “The Ascension”. While the essential strategy appears virtually unchanged, the mere sonics of the piece, for this listener, create an engaging, vibrant ambience, more so than in the prior two pieces. The title cut includes abstract radio usage, further enhancing and variegating the drone. Catlin ends the disc effectively with a work for crash cymbal, again a steady-state construction that might remind some of Jason Kahn’s investigations of tangential areas.

In the end, it all depends on one’s capacity for simply wallowing in the drones. If that’s your notion of a well-spent afternoon (as it occasionally is for me), “Radio Ghosts” is for you.

23five