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Opton Review: Sonicism

Dimuzio is something of a find. His double CD provides a wealth of diverse, thoughtful, industrial ambience. It would take practically the length of a review just to list Dimuzio's instruments, sampled sound sources and field recordings; the list would include not only guitars and synthesizers, but also clarinet, water spigot (!), short-wave radio, shrink-wrap machine, conveyor belt, thunderstorm, bees, fire and freight trains. Dimuzio's methodology is generally consistent throughout the two discs, without becoming overly predictable. He favors slow disclosures rather than sudden revelations, and most of his pieces unfold at leisure, sometimes beginning at a subliminal level. (This is a minor irritation on several tracks, as it results in over a minute of apparently dead air while the piece struggles toward audibility.) Characteristically, Dimuzio uses thick, harmonically rich drones, with little percussion as such, but sometimes with regular pulses and patterns. Ocassionally, as in "AutoNation", a relentless rhythmic intensity emerges; on "Clearcut" or "Atonement," the mood turns harsh and abrasive. More often, though, Dimuzio's pieces have a kind of quiet mystery to them, but whatever the emotional quality of the piece, close listening reveals a great deal of subtle, subterranean movement and evidence of an impressive talent. Even allowing for the double CD format, there is more "meat" on this industrial bone than on any six of the typical releases in the genre. —William Tilland