OMIT

— First review of this album —

In this tormented weird electronic effort, Omit carries on the exploration of dark isolation and mental torpor. This album is similar to Alineation, Quad or Retraction but injects much more arrangements in the substance of sound collages and drones. The articulation seems much more evident between the sound objects. However we can regret it doesn't have the trancey-like, hypnotic effects of later albums as Tracer or Interceptor. Deformed is very lugubrious, austere, nightmare-ish, trying to create an increased intesity in the space-time system of moving sound textures. The Rising of massed deformities is a claustophobic dark environmental piece that reminds Lustmord at his very best. There's a perfect combination between buzzing drone textures and micro-events based on echoing metallic sound objects. Calling Master Obliveon is a micro-tonal lysergic piece which almost prefigures the sublime dreamy-like pieces of tracer. The spectral electronic textures are punctuated by sound collages and percolations. I was already waiting for your is a strange noisy free rocking piece including e-guitar manipulations, amplified natural sounds. Black shaft depletion goes back to the initial musical and creative schema with a wide range of industrial effects and surrounded hallucinatory electronic loops. If it's not a top class standard as the three last (Rejector, Tracer, Interceptor), With Interior Desolation, Deformed remains one of the most accomplished and surprising albums from Omit's first decade

— First review of this album —

Since the beginning of the 90's, the australian based project Omit published an important catalogue of weird, corrosive, ephemeral hypno-droning pieces. Retraction is almost the first of a long serie of achieved, original musical sound sculptures whose aesthetism is directly recognisable. Retraction is an honest experimental, cryptical album but it's by fare less moving than the terrific Rejector or Tracer (published a few years later). The instrumentation features a lot of manipulated concrete sounds, shadowy continuous sound forms, metallic injections / perforations. Pre Gain starts this lugubruous experimental album with obssessional, intoxicated industrial pulses, alarms and electronic oscillations. Neo-traction delivers a Bianchi-like infectious, bionic industrial piece with lot of strange signals. Sub-retraction is closer to what Omit will deliver a few years after: it presents an austere, dark-isolated drone covered by various electronic clicks, percussions with the add of altered voices and bizarre concrete noises. Down View carries on the same path but includes a much more moody-dreamy-like vibe thanks to nocturnal buzzing organ chords. Low Depth is a chaotic-free rocking experimentation (closed to early Kluster or zweisten). Not a classic but it introduces a few interesting musical elements that will be sublimated in albums as Rejector or Tracer.

I'm delighted to see Clinton Williams' OMIT moniker here. Dark, minimalist electronic music can come from the strangest of places, and Williams is from New Zealand, not a place usually associated with doom-laden drones.

This is generally regarded as his best effort. Though dated 2005, the music was actually first released in 2001 on CD-R, so is not necessarily a follow-up to 'Rejector', his previous album. Williams has been releasing limited editions of his music since the late 1980s, and is very much a virtuoso (as far as anyone can be in this field) with an ear for balance and space in his compositions. 'Tracer' is the soundtrack to the loss of your senses: what you might hear if you were locked in a windowless room for a week. Grindings and groanings, wooden clicks and taps, random shrill clicks and farts as though the wireless in the room two streets over is slightly off the station. The occasional spoken sample appears, slowed and distorted, heralding the breakdown of technology or communication, or running through a list of local banks, serving to further alienate the listener from humanity. And below it all the relentless, never-ending pulse that manages never to be a beat, all washed over by smothering synth drones.

I bet that doesn't sound very appealing to most proggers! But it has a magic of its own, this stuff, hammering at you from the 20-minute opener 'Sequester' that could have been any length from 5 to 30 minutes. Drop anywhere into the song: you'll have no idea where you are. As I said, sensory deprivation. Most of the tracks on this 2 CD set are relatively short, never overstaying their welcome, but Williams does take you for a few extended journeys. These are my preferred moments from this set. Interestingly, the track titles hint at their contents, with words like flex, decayer, din-cycle, pro-hiss and so on.

The nearest popular referent I can offer is late AUTECHRE, though slowed down and without a hint of melody. Those familiar with the work of KLAUSE SCHULTZE will recognise his influence over Williams' music. The random glitch-clicks are there, sounding like someone rummaging through a tool box for a spanner ('Clicker'). There is never a compromise to popular musical expectation: like modern art, this music is personal and introspective. I can thoroughly recommend this for lovers of experimental electronica, early German avant-garde and adventurous ambient. I can't honestly argue that this is essential for every progger, but the braver among you might appreciate it.

— First review of this album —

This New Zealand's moody avant-minimal-electronic project reached the pinnacle of its history with the release of the sublime Tracer (2005). With Interior Desolation we go back to the original Omit's sound which is not quite different from their last efforts, delivering long monotonous hypno-textures, loops and micro-electronic clicks. However the difference appears in the arrangements. The sonic electronic atmosphere of Interior Desolation is disturbed by alienated, negative, evocative schyzo noises and effects that give to this album a rather bizarre & creepy dimension. the epic dark experimental ambient Solitary disembarkment is one of the central pieces here: a gory / bloody traumatic hypno-electronic piece covered (during the first minutes) by abusively violent noises of animals...the ambience becomes totally surreal and seriously haunted with a general mood that recalls Conrad Schnitzler's buzzing electronic effort called Zug. The backdown tooks back the same ingredients, extended spectral noises, deeply cinematic, dangerous, sinister, melancholic organs, hypnotic-looped drum pulses. Mimesis, Unfaithful resolution are also spacious, catchy and weird electronic mechanics. The withdrawal which closed the album is the second haunting epic piece and once again it starts with terrifying sampled concrete noises to reach into a tense, buzzing electronic effervescence. Not revolutionnary but brilliantly immersive, nightmarish / electronic-horror experience not recommended to everyone. Fans of Conrad Schnitzler, Seesselberg, Asmus Tietchens should give listen.

Here is definitely one of my all time electronic favourites. This is much more than a simple album, this is a pyramid, a milestone of abstract musical pictures, speaking directly to mind and the most introspect side of human soul. All tracks contain creepy, sometimes dreamy ambiences embellished with electronic effects and collages. Totally captivating and hypnotizing from the beginning to the end. No big difference compared to their previous "Rejector" but the continuous sound forms are more immersive and consistent. The double album can be listened in one time because all tracks are flowing and floating almost as one single composition. To accompany the sustained & almost static tones and vibrations, we can occasionally hear some discreet electronic clicks, surprisingly hypnotic and repetitive. The minimal approach interacts with buzzing, rumbling melodies. All tracks develop "doom" like organic sounds. The material is absolutely not complicated but sumptuously efficient, reaching its objective without any deviations. Deep cerebral soundscapes which blow away a large part of efforts produced by the Berlin progressive electronic scene. This dense, spherical electronic excursion reaches the aesthetic level and musical brilliance of Ambarchi, Nyblock and others. Chillingly intense!!!

Real time progressive electronic sounds in the tradition of first attempts from 70s Berlin underground scene. This work came out with the idea of running throw evocative, spectral soundscapes full of drones textures, micro accidents and events. "Bridge rectifier" contains abrasive, fuzzing sounds and noises obtained by electronic collages and manipulations. After two minutes we go into a spherical, monotonous but highly powerful dronescape. "Uniselector" is much more rhythmical with repetitive hypnotic percussions and discreet ambient synth lines. "Full relay" catches the essence of floating, abstract, static drones (this composition reminds some Conrad Schnitzler materials). "Divider" features a haunted, vicious space fuzz with delicate rhythmical patterns. "Bistable" and "Rejector" present other variations of moody, dark continous sounds with electronic clicks to stress the minimal aspect of the music. A dark, glacial and gorgeous listen. The best will come with the surprising "Tracer".