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Tim Catlin
Radio Ghosts
23five011
REVIEWS:
Cyclic Defrost
Issue 17, April 2007
There's a profound stillness to the second album from Melbourne
musician and tabletop guitarist Tim Catlin. Predominantly utilizing
treated guitars, both electric and acoustic, Catlin crafts these
amazing drones that consist of a certain crisp textural quality,
drones that seem incredibly thin, simple and stately, with a lot
of carefully considered modulating activity. This is the polar opposite
of your warm woolly feedback drones in which modulations and rhythms
collide haphazardly around. The work here is filled with intent,
almost scientifically so. Development comes slowly, almost imperceptibly,
many of the pieces feel like you're trapped in stasis, before you
realize that something hidden low in the mix has gradually began
to assert itself. The pieces are highly treated, whether by guitar
effects or postproduction, with Catlin making no attempts to hide
this fact, actually listing the instruments that he used at a basis
for each piece. It's not until the third piece "Black Magnet"
however, where he first utilizes electric guitar that we receive
a familiar sounding instrument with some cascading fluttering. Even
here it's quite sparse work, with no accompaniment, just developing
patterns to uncover new resonant frequencies. The title track, another
gentle piece with a strange looped sound that later seems to reveal
itself as a drill on the strings, is interspersed with radio static
and an incredibly dense warm drone that evolves into something that
closely resembles throat singing. It's these subtle carefully controlled
evolutions that are the rewards of Radio Ghosts, Catlin's
ability to shift the listeners perception without them even realizing
that it is occurring. It's such a lulling experience that when he
adopts approaches that appear noisier and less controlled, relying
more on subtle feedback from a bowed cymbal on Everything must go,
that the effect is infinitely more jarring. Perhaps he realizes
this as the outro to said piece is the most relaxing drifting piece
of ambient music on the album. Radio Ghosts is an experimental
work where nothing feels out of place whilst its minimal approach
to tools, exploring elements of the guitar, strings and wood might
be alienating for some, it has a cumulative effect of leaving the
listener sated with a feeling of purity, balance and stillness.
-- Bob Baker Fish
Postscript - After seeing this review, Tim Catlin kindly informed
me that he doesn't use electronic processing, so every mention about
post production should be scrapped. How he was able to achieve such
an incredible sound utilising acoustic guitars (on the first two
tracks) is beyond this writers comprehension. He suggested it was
via overdubs and EQing, and did admit to using an e-bow. That said
the absence of this kind of processing raises his achievements to
a whole new level, and makes this writer vow to read the press release
in the future.
Paris
Transatlantic
June 2007
Audio stasis is a wonderful condition, especially when it can be
created through the use of ever so slight variation and tonal phasing.
Here, Melbourne guitar improviser Tim Catlin delivers a series of
measured drone works that resolve many of the issues he's investigated
in his recent live performances. Split effectively into three sections
– works involving acoustic guitar, electric guitar and also,
interestingly, cymbal – Catlin tends his instruments with
a smoothness, ensuring their vibration is, for the most part, kept
at a suitable level. Without question, it's the tentative stasis
on Radio Ghosts that is the album's supreme asset, a sense
of uncertainty resulting from Catlin's tendency to alternate between
withdrawing from and developing his ideas, refocusing the sound
palette and ensuring that at no one point does the listener become
complacent. Nowhere is this stealthy transformation more apparent
than on "Everything Must Go", which finds Catlin exploring
a series of ill-fated high ringing tones that eventually deconstruct
to reveal the slowly modulating E-Bow underbelly. "Mirage",
with its constantly emerging bowed tones and motors gently pounding
the surface of the cymbal, is a fine closing thought for the record,
a summary of sorts, crystallising these six exercises in tonal variation
and gradual transformation. -- Lawrence English
The
Sound Projector
Winter 2007 / 2008
Last noted in these pages with his excellent 2003 recording, Slow
Twitch, a title which accurately describes Catlin's working
methods (twitchy) and the overall pace of his work (slow). Pouring
ouf fhis music like golden syrup, this Melbourne-based fellow is
equally at home in the worlds of improv, composition, and gallery
art; and he is a significant name on the Australian avant scene,
having played with US minimalist big-fish Niblock, and is known
to build his own mechanical resonating devices to stimulate the
strings of his guitars in naughty ways. As a result, he usually
comes up with rich and fascinating drone pieces. More of them are
on this CD; two of them "Hysterisis" and "Zumbido"
were realised using an acoustic guitar, and "Mirage"
using a crash cymbal; the rest were done with electric guitars.
While the opening cuts are rich with buzzing interest, they're just
too process-based for me, and there isn't enough human interaction
in that process (one gets the feeling that he could have just turned
on a device and left the room). We enter more interesting areas
with "Black Magnet," the first electric guitar piece.
Here, it feels like someone is actually playing something (though
this could be an illusion), and the jangly dynamics of a very sporting
right hand make this an exceeingly pleasant six minutes, like hearing
the guitar solo to "Eight Miles High" spun out to excessive
length. "Everything Must Go," another electric guitar
episode, is spread thickly with further room-filling monolithic
shapes (very Niblock-esque, this), while occasional scrapes and
key-jangling on the strings prevent the listener from falling asleep
out of tonal boredom. "Mirage," the cymbal piece, gives
the impression that a small motorized object has been left to patter
against the metallic surface of that percussive component for 12
minutes; leave it on if you like watching gaseous clouds billow
forth. The title track, which uses a radio alongside an electric
guitar, creates a stir in my lower depths. While one could glibly
make comparisons to the radio capers of Keith Rowe, or the estimable
Radio Guitar CD by Peggy Awesh and Barbara Ess, this time
Catlin strikes gold in his own unique way. Here's a guitar sound
worth getting out of bed in the morning for; it could have been
dug up from the bottom of cathedral crypt, it reeks that much of
mustiness and ancient. The radio elements, which only infect the
first half of the performance, are gentle and surreal; they pass
on the sensation of dream-like flight to planet Venus, as the listener
grows white swan's wings and floats with the grace of a weightless
dragonfly. -- Ed Pinsent
Bagatellen
May 2007
The circlet of intertwined steel strings on the front cover of Tim
Catlin's new disc is an apt illustration of the guitar-generated
dronage found within. How much affinity the listener will find with
the music depends a bit on how satisfied s/he is with just the drones
since, by and large, that's how things are presented here.
There's a certain amount of fascination to be found with the sounds
themselves. On the first two cuts, Catlin employs only an acoustic
guitar, presumably enhancing its output with vibrating devices of
some sort resulting in tamboura-like, jangly drones with back layers
of smoother hums. The texture, grainy and bumpy, is the main attraction
because, simply put, that's all there is, the variation between
elements of less interest than the overall "feel". Personally,
I found these tracks lacking enough richness to really maintain
interest, though I can easily imagine others happily lolling in
the mesh. The emergence of the electric guitar on tracks 3-5 comes
as a bracing tonic, a clarity of intent that's quite attractive.
Its ringing tones immediately recall Branca's "The Spectacular
Commodity" from his The Ascension. While the essential
strategy appears virtually unchanged, the mere sonics of the piece,
for this listener, create an engaging, vibrant ambience, more so
than in the prior two pieces. The title cut includes abstract radio
usage, further enhancing and variegating the drone. Catlin ends
the disc effectively with a work for crash cymbal, again a steady-state
construction that might remind some of Jason Kahn's investigations
of tangential areas.
In the end, it all depends on one's capacity for simply wallowing
in the drones. If that's your notion of a well-spent afternoon (as
it occasionally is for me), Radio Ghosts is for you. --
Brian Olewnick
Vital Weekly
Issue 579, June 2007
...something similar we can say of Tim Catlin's Radio Ghosts.
He's also from down there [Australia] and the only time his name
popped in Vital Weekly (388) was when we discussed his Slow
Twitch CD on Dr Jim's Records (which is really run by a doctor).
Much water has passed under the bridge, and here is the second CD
by Catlin (that we know of). Catlin plays his guitars by using objects
to get resonating sounds out of the strings. Small motor devices
such as ventilators and e-bows are placed in such a way that overtones
occur. Glenn Branca used a real ensemble to create this, Remko Scha
ropes and wires and Keith Rowe already the ventilator. What Catlin
does is hardly to be called 'new', and the review of his previous
CD ended with the suggestion that he should find new ways to create
his music and not stick around with this, so perhaps it's a pity
that he did stick around this sound. He could easily produce another
ten or so of these kind of works, but it would be good to see some
progression. Four or so years would be enough to get something moving,
I'd say. But as such this CD is quite nice. The pieces he plays
are done nice and executed with style and a keen ear for subtle
changes. So in that aspect there is no let down. -- Frans de Waard
ei-mag
July 2007
... without discarding this imbalance entirely, Radio Ghosts puts
more of an emphasis on its cultivation. The album as a whole is
superbly measured, yet its changes ring true. Catlin places motor
devices such as ebow and ventilators on the strings of his acoustic
guitar so that a vast resonant hum emanates from the instrument.
These slow-moving, spacious drones, far from coaxing one into complacency,
twine the aura with the non-homogenous: metallic percussion, low-end
sublimities and jittery high frequency tones all allow the ambience
to open up, grow in complexity, and reveal its polychromatic dimension.
Although the terms of its development are easily discernible, given
that Catlin replays them time and again throughout the album, it's
nevertheless refined in its management and ultimate collusion with
the objects at hand. -- Max Schaefer
Signal To Noise
Issue 47, Fall 2007
Keith Rowe names his recent quartet "Four Gentlemen of the
Guitar" because, although not all members were playing guitar
in the usual sense, all of their playing was related to the instrument.
It's a nice way to think of the sort of minimal guitar abstraction
of which Rowe is the granddaddy and in which Australian Tim Catlin
indulges as well. It's a curious mix of acoustic sounds with electronic
textures. At times, it's unabashedly guitary, other times resonantly
mechanical, and in parts purely alien. Catlin tends to separate
these parts, doling out different sound ideals in segments. His
solo record features six tracks -- two performed on acoustic guitar,
three on electric, and the last played solely on crash cymbal. As
such, it's more a considered listen -- one doesn't get lost in an
hour-long soundworld but instead concentrates on the guitarist's
approaches, artistic if not physical. And while the division into
shorter (under 10 minute) tracks invites comparison more than a
single extended piece would, it's of no consequence. Overall, it's
an inviting, even warm, record. -- Kurt Gottschalk
Ruis Magazine
September 2007
De prijs voor de mooiste hoes in de reeks gaat naar Tim Catlin's
Radio Ghosts. Wat enkele simpele en arty foto's toch
niet kunnen teweegbrengen bij ons. Catlin woont in Melbourne en
neemt zijn gitaarspel op zonder de gitaar aan te raken. Nu en dan
tokkelt hij wel eens op een snaar, maar bij Catlin draait alles
rond de mechanically prepared guitar: hij neemt de triviale details
op van een gitaar in beweging. Catlin verbaasd ons met zijn rijke
drones, simpelweg ontstaan door zorgvuldig en weloverwogen minimale
gitaarmodulaties. -- Dave Driesman
Jazzthetik
September 2007
Oder auch die des Melbourner Gittarristen Tim Catlin, der auf Radio
Ghostsdie Vibrationen seines instruments auslotet. Und Die
haben Sowohl Abgründe, aber auch Spitzen, die Catlin in einen
spürbaren Zustand überträgt. Von Anschlagen oder
Spielen kann dabei nicht dei Rede sein, veilmehr versetzt er alles
in Schingungn, die zu unglaublischen Interferenzen führen.
Über mehrere Minuten hält Catlin wie in der Minimal Music
dei Stücke in der Schwebe und lässt das Ganze wie ganz
langsame Wellen anspülen unde abebben. Kaum zu glauben, dass
er sich dabei wirklich auf die Mittel Holz, Saiten und Verstärker
berschränkt und den Prozess nicht editiert hat. Dass er auch
andere Instrumente in diesen Zustand versetzen kann, beweist er
mit dem letzten Stück, "Mirage," wenn er ein Beckn
ins permanente Vibrieren bringt. Großartig. -- Klaus Smit
Touching
Extremes
July 2007
After Catlin's first CD - 2003's Slow Twitch on Dr. Jim
- four years have passed before Radio Ghosts, a collection
of six pieces - two for acoustic guitar, three for electric guitar
and one for crash cymbal. It's an intriguing assortment, in which
Catlin shows his ability in setting guitar strings in continuous
motion, thus creating systems that highlight the impact between
an oscillating emotional response and the sheer mechanical experiment.
Staying away from manual interventions as much as he can, the Australian
is one of those artists who seems to prefer the observation of an
unfolding process, with just a modicum of changes over the course
of the pieces. Motorized preparations and alternative tunings contribute
to the creation of tapestries that exploit the clash of the adjacent
upper partials while maintaining a sort of inner consonance, the
only exception being the cymbal-based track "Mirage",
which throws its most potent rays of unfathomable environmental
symbiosis with a higher degree of controlled violence. The title
track adds a radiophonic presence to the existing soundscape, determining
phenomena of imaginary voices accompanying a mantric graduality.
All things considered, Catlin's music is quite different from that
produced by the names quoted in the press release - Branca, Rowe,
O'Rourke, Organum - as its remote morphology is perceivable deep
within its most obscure sections, in contrast with the oppressive
rumbles and deformations reminding us what Greek composer Dimitri
Voudouris wrote: "Consciousness itself is a vibration pattern."
-- Massimo Ricci
IndiePopRock.net
Zzzrrzzzhh : c'est à peu prês tout ce qu'on
entend sur la première plage de l'album. Un feedback
long de sept minutes trente neuf secondes, ça fait parfois
un bon morceau ambiant et expérimental, mais on ne cachera
pas notre ennui lors de l'écoute de Hysterisis. Et après
cette entrée en matière on caresse l'idée
d'entendre un fragment de mélodie auquel se raccrocher.
Peine perdue, on entendra juste un Rzzzrrzhh sur le deuxième
morceau de dix minutes, Zumbido. Avant la fin de ce dernier, on
sera passé à la plage suivante, Black Magnet, où
l'on commence à retrouver un peu de musique. Ambiant
et atmosphérique, ce morceau est le seul vraiment audible
de tout l'album, composé à partir de guitares électriques,
acoustique et d'une cymbale. Au final il faut bien avouer
que l'on s'emmerde pas mal à l'écoute
de ce "Radio Ghosts". -- Mathieu Gandin
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