The cover of Stasis Duo’s untitled album goes some way to representing the music contained therein: faint streaks of grey are smeared across a white backdrop, dappled in faint digital grain, suggesting a barren, binary form of isolation. All tracks are untitled and utilise similar sounds: extreme high sine tones, like the empty sampler noise of Japanese onkyo improviser Sachiko M. Unlike her, Stasis Duo push these tones into action, so they gently waver, like lengths of string blowing in the wind. Occasionally bits of grit flicker past, but otherwise little happens. Track 4 for instance is so high that it exists more as presence than sound, a painful absorption of electronics into the brain, like the security devices used in the UK to deter youth from loitering around corner shops.
Its baffling that anyone might willingly choose to listen to these sounds.
Joshua Meggitt
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