Dial 81 – Luminous Stasis – M1-SESSIONS
Dial 81 is staying busy this autumn. After the experimental composer of ambient techno and progressive hip-hop scored evocatively ominous/ruminative instrumental pieces for this summer’s vivid Detropia documentary (pieces he’ll soon be performing live), he also just released a single with his more pop-leaning side project: Dark Wave.
Now, with Luminous Stasis out last week, Dial 81 (a.k.a. emcee/producer Blair French) goes back to his roots: spacey-sublime dreamscapes dazzlingly haunted with echoed, reverb-drenched samples, sprinkling chilly synth rattles atop low booming bass fuzz, and wafting in eerie organ sighs down upon steady swaying beats. Detached drifters, far from earthy, out-there-sounds, orbiting free of muddier organic acoustics; French demonstrates his keen sense for striking elegance via the synthetic.
This is music to muse to in the wee hours of the morning, music that lets only a little light in, sparse and sporadic synth-centric collages affecting ponderous visions (if you close your eyes to it
), but percussive enough, though, so as not to lull.
Listen: “Luminous Stasis” ft. Paul Randolph
So then…
in Dial 81 news~
He’ll be performing a live incarnation of the Detropia soundtrack on November 17th at Motor City Wine.
In the meantime, you can stream his remix of a single off Doc Waffles’ most recent record (Ambulance Chasers) titled “Diabetes.”
This article appears in Nov 7-13, 2012.
