Radio Ghosts
(23five) CD $12.00 (Out-of-stock)
Catlin’s recorded output stands among the best that Glenn Branca, Keith Rowe, and Jim O’Rourke have mustered from their six strings hard wired into the histories of electroacoustics, minimalism, and post-punk experimentation. The Melbourne guitarist incessantly tinkers with the mechanics of his instrument, envisioning it as a mimetic sculptural object and as a pure sound generator. Through his experiments with alternative tunings, atypical string gauges, and Rube Goldberg contraptions of interconnected motors, speakers, and radios, he seeks rasping textures of strings vibrating against each other, acoustic phase patterns of two microtonally tuned strings, and the electrical purity of circuits feeding back upon themselves, essentially creating a polyglot drone symphony cast in smoldering monochrome. Radio Ghosts is devoid of Marshall stacks, Sunn amps, and stomp boxes; Catlin captures the acoustic phenomenon of the guitar’s transient vibrations and steers clear of any tricked out sonic demolition.