The Geist Cycles began as a series of live collaborations acting out a certain transmutation, that of life into the afterlife. Despite the artists intentions, however, there are other equally prominent transitions happening here: Jason Corder’s shift from ambient post-rock to his own kind of poly-linguistic Babel, for one, a unified multiplicity comprised of crystalline, harmonious note showers and clanking digital transmissions.
The somewhat coarse, rocky surfaces are scoured with strings and vaguely ominous pulses, which flesh them out with more subtlety. Without the sense that someone is working the faders and knobs, and without the sense that the music has the earthly heaviness of limbs, the translucent pieces are able to glide, undergoing changes in musical mood, pace and structure, but always conveying the same sort of non-place.
Inasmuch as the sound is generally rather fluid, all whirling glint, fizzling static and distinctive hums merging and separating in an impersonal yet somewhat singular manner, the intermittent inclusion of strings, piano and appropriated female voices stir the air with nature’s hallucinagenics and lends these otherwise indistinct atmospheres a touch of pathos. The album isn’t exploratory but instinctive, and in that it remains poised and understated throughout, resulting in Corder’s most intimate and enveloping electronic environment yet.
Max Schaefer
