from
SIDE LINE #45
Crackletone is a solo project set up by Jim Sutherland.
This compositor seems to be already busy writing
soundtrack for tv for years now. One of his most
noticeable experiences has been the writing for
an episode of the "Taggart" - series entitled "Fire,
Burn".
This track seems to have been pciekd up for the purpose
of this 3-track cd and renamed "Journey To The Sea Of
Sparks"*.
Curiously enough it is the less fascinating
cut I heard here. I definitely prefer the opening piece
"Crackletone"*, which is
an experiment of 30" full
of diversity. The main atmosphere remains dark
forever, while Sutherland experiences with
pure experimental styles and the usual soundtrack
style. He used for this purpose elements like
wind, water .. the 2nd cut entitled "Fondle Park"
goes on the same line and hold on the attention of the
listener. I've to add that you better like this kind of
music, but this release is definitely worthy of
examination!
(DP:6)
* the review
actually gets these two titles in the
wrong order. "Crackletone" is the 30" minute
piece used in Taggart "Fire, Burn"
From
Brainwashed.com
Jim Sutherland has quite a background as a composer
of television and film scores. Crackletone is his somewhat minimalist,
somewhat spooky, and somehow intriguing vehicle for composing drone-based
pieces. I say that the pieces are drone-based, but that really isn't
fair: there are a lot of different sounds used throughout the rather
awkwardly named album: what might be the sounds of a heart beating
are combined with nauseating organ spills, a little too cleanly
produced digital bleeps and bloops, and truly effective moans bubbling
over with drifting winds and interstellar interference. The result
of combining haunting and intriguing sounds with overused and bland
ones makes for a see-saw experience. At times the sounds really
produce a sense of horror but then they are interrupted by sounds
that remind me that the horrific stuff can't possibly be real. In
other words, what seems gritty, dirty, and real is revealed as fake
because of sci-fi noises that remind me of blaster sounds used in
so many video games. The first track, "Crackletone," is a thirty-minute
composition that manages to stay entrancing and believable despite
some of the rather silly sounds used in it. "Fondle Park" is nearly
unlistenable. In fact, I only listened to it once and that was only
because I felt I had to so that I could be honest about the album
as a whole. "Journey to the Sea of Sparks" is probably the best
piece on the album, where a majority of those digital and clean
sounds have been eliminated in favor of a rather stunning combination
of distorted grandfather clocks, evil hissing, and a truly strange
melody that appears half-way through and then disappears into the
void of space the rest of the sounds create. Maybe it's the sound
of a storm as heard by someone on LSD or maybe its just the rumblings
of a space-monsters hungry stomach. In either case, it's entertaining.
I can't wholly reccomend this release, but I can't deny that I enjoy
a good portion of it when I give it a spin; it's just that I don't
often feel compelled to listen to it
From
Ambientrance.com
As if geysering up from some deep mind-galaxy, churning drones and
shattered gleams come in pulsations, eruptions and wisps which are
Crackletone (30:24), a dark sci-fi journey of the unknown; moods
slowly morph from subtle ear-visions of musical abstraction to more-threatening
modes of ominous power, and then back. After a prolonged floatation,
chaos ignites the vapors... but only briefly. Subaquatic warped
choirs, a skywide sprawl of blurry blips and more disorient like
a mild, possibly-pleasant, form of dementia. There's even a Pink-Floydesque
freakout right around the 24-minute mark.
A brief silence precedes the phase in/out of swooshy organ-like
streams when fondle park (8:32) caresses the star-filled sky with
wriggling electric tendrils; microtextures and virtual-organics
seem to thrive within the evershifting glows, gurgles and glares.
Rougher environments ensue in the closing title track... low turbulence
seems to scuff the near-vacuum, etched with light static. An unexpected
outburst of bloopy, sorta-tuneful notes seems out of place given
the otherwise amusical atmospherics; this occurs a few moments before
the journey fades away.
crackletone's journey to the sea of sparks presents a well-documented
trip (in at least two senses of the word) through previously unimagined
realms. For those who prefer the outer-limits to be plumbed with
alien sound rather than music, this may be the excursion you've
been waiting for. Expertly rendered, though I wasn't 100% sucked
into this all-over-creation wormhole... B