Derek Rogers-The Exhaustion Of Emotion
It might be the front cover image of gloaming LA that did it, but I was quickly reminded of Angelo Badalamenti’s work on David Lynch’s films – and Mulholland Dr. in particular – on my first listen to this. The drones are deep and ominous but, on tracks like ‘Primitive Honor’ and ‘The Exhaustion of Emotion’ in particular, they’re underpinned by intoxicating, woozy synth tones that stir in the listener the kind of emotional response that Rogers evidently drained himself of in order to lay it directly onto tape. ‘Unto The Keeper’ is a euphoric blast of hope and optimism but that feeling is gradually overcome as the tape progresses and the drones grow deeper, darker and more threatening. ‘We Know Not The Error of Our Ways’, which closes Side A, presents a roiling cyclone of static that puts paid to any thoughts you might get of this being romantic stroll down Sunset Boulevard. Side B is a dreamland, knocked-out loaded, lost and amnesiac and ‘Firm Implantation’ is exhaustion manifest; the tape itself seems to drag itself around here, as if suffering from a bad case of sticky-shed, and it does fall apart Basinski-style as the syths rise up to bury it.
Static Encounters 
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