UK label Touch is one of the long serving experimental music labels that has managed to stay afloat whilst not loosing sight of it’s curatorial philosophies. This disc, to celebrate their 25th year features some remarkably worthwhile contributions, and some rather useless interjections and sound samples. On the positive side, the monotonal pulse of Oren Ambarchi’ guitar work is never without it’s highpoints (or low points sonically speaking). His piece is as usual a slow burner, gently pulsing away, surveying a range of low to mid range manoeuvres that are always pleasurable for the ears. Fennesz’ “Tree’ again is almost exactly what you might expect, but again in a pleasurable way – the acoustic strums offering a glimpse of the Fennesz source materials. The list continues, Chris Watson’ stunning visceral “Conversations’, Rafael Toral’ modulating “Glove Touch’ and Rosy Parlane’ immersive “Atlantis’. The inclusion of pieces like “Actual Time Of Arrival’ and “ATC Graph’, beyond their role to beef up this CD to 25 tracks (and perhaps offer some audio curiosity) seems somewhat indulgent and by the end of the disc they become a tedious interruption between some highly commendable layers of audio.
Lawrence English
