The invariant, ill-omened drones and ghostly striations which flit across this, Tod Dockstader’ third and final edition to his Aerial series, seem always to be overflowing, always exhausting themselves in reaching toward some masked Other. With its deep, graceful unfolding, tasteful and imaginative tone-mangling, and poetic approach to breadth, one would not be far in off in insisting that this album, though thoroughly modern in approach, is belied by hues of romanticism and its emphasis on the fragment. In this light, Dockstader does not so much excavate sounds from his short-wave radio as he performs an exorcism on its ailing body, shapes it into a real versatile instrument, and makes its spirits writhe at his feet.
After the more upfront, abrasive excursions found in the second volume, Dockstader canvasses this effort with more cinematic forms. Every composition consists of a particle wrested from a whole, panned, delayed and layered into harmonic densities that are brimming with small, contrasting details that nevertheless manage to find a spontaneous unity. The drones – drifting and evocative – are also more measured this time out. Their cool, vaporous progression often acts like a searchlight exposing a wealth of deformed, quivering frequencies and darting shafts of static. On account of these yawning drones, moreover, a real sense of motion is prevalent, even when pieces are at their most skeletal. On tracks like ˇDescentˇ, wiry anti-harmonies and haunting electronic tones glide drearily across hissing undercurrents, while on others patches of micro-sound frequencies and icicle-like timbres penetrate a body of pulsating drones like a sharp blade. A fitting farewell to what has been a most endearing project, Aerial #3 conjures the otherworldly through calm communication.
Max Schaefer
