This is my first post about re-listening some of the albums I have bought many years ago. The reason for doing this is mainly because after all these years my criteria and understanding of music and sound has developed and has led to a different understanding of the work of these artists.
Ivan Pavlov, aka CoH (for sleep or dream in Russian), released 'Patterns' in 2006 in Raster - Noton an EP of 4 tracks. Someone might say that even from the album title it would fit the Raster-Noton catalog. The cover of the album has quite the minimalistic design of most of the Raster-Noton releases with a grid matrix and on the bottom some red dots, which visually could represent the sound beats of many artists in this label. On the inside, some variations of red color that could be understood of the variations of beats in the album as you go along through this listening experience.
These beat variations are quite some of the elements in the early CoH music, and after listening to it seems like the patterns refer to the beat patterns in the album. In an interview, he has referred to the beat patterns that progress in his albums even in the other releases in Editions Mego. While I'm writing these lines I'm listening to the 'COHGS' (2017) released in Editions Mego and the impression that the sound and production is much darker, perhaps because he has used vocals/ voices from Christopherson, John Balance, and some Japanese artists. It follows a common path of abstract and electronic minimalism, but the vocals keep distracting me from focusing on the technical part of the music.
Another work that was released in Raster-Noton in 2008 was 'CoH Plays Cosey', which in terms of the vocal and voices in the album matches closer to the Editions Mego release, except that it is the voice Cosey Fanni Tutti in the album. An additional fact of this resemblance is that CoH worked Cosey to the likes of Coil and Throbbing Gristle. Moreover, in this album, the vocals are more dominant, or at least in my ears as a big fan of Cosey, but also gives an impression of more freedom in sound experimentation.
Back to 'Patterns' and the good Raster-Noton minimalism. From my recent listenings, the closest I can think of this album is the live recording of Alva Noto, late Mika Vainio and Ryoji Ikeda 'Movement' in 2001. Although it resembles a more ambient and rich minimalistic listening of a live recording, the element of minimalist and the different variations is also present in this release.
Thus, CoH seems to follow a minimalist electronic music path and perhaps because of his sound engineering work, seems to focus a lot on the sound technology to give a good experience to the listener. These sound vibrations are noticed mostly on track 'Path 1', which is my favorite track of the album. The other tracks have some noise parts followed by sudden cuts to escalate the variations in the tracks. In the track 'Path 3' follows the same pattern, except that there is a more techno-like part at the end of the track, which I feel that it could be a bit longer to add more interest to the track.
And finally, Track 4 elevates so nicely. The closer I could think of my initial re-listening experience is to the early Underworld electronic work, excluding the lyrics. The track is around 5 min and seems that it takes to you some notion of chaos, experienced in different parts of the day, or even for an action movie or series from Netflix. The closing 30 seconds are the final parts of a very good ending, with the only criticism that I'd like these seconds to last longer rather me going back to hear it again.
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