Codicil by Karl Fousek
As fans of experimental music, we’re often told we’re snobbish and unable to embrace traditional pop values. Of course it’s a silly argument. I mean, we all grew up on pop and it still informs listening habits in some regard, to ignore it is to cut off your nose to spite your face levels of cliched arrogance. Thankfully Karl Fousek proves those shit sprayers wrong with his latest, Codicil. It’s a warbling synthetic stroke of smartness that showcases that pop elements are a universal filter for all things new. Despite the drunken melodies within, Codicil balances itself miraculously like the girls two sheets deep that compose themselves to nail the Electric Slide at the reception. Perhaps a bit too cliched? Nonetheless, that’s the raw beauty of Fousek’s experimentation. Despite the source material, turns out repeating ideas with the inherent crest and thump of synthesizer creates quite the rhythmic pop.
—Tiny Mix Tapes
Toronto’s Adhesive Sounds launched earlier this year as a cassette imprint focusing mostly on Montreal and Toronto’s vibrant experimental scene, and since there’s no shortage of interesting music bubbling up from the scene, the imprint is already eight tapes deep into its catalog with no sign of slowing down that pace. The label’s most recent offering brings us Karl Fousek‘s Codicil EP, a 20-minute suite of heady, blippy synth studies utilizing the newcomer’s simplified setup, described by Fousek as including only “minimal modular synth + tape delay setup.” It appears as though Codicil is Fousek’s second release, following his Relative Position of Figures debut on Phinery from this past May, but the sounds here hit with the sonic maturity of the modern modular greats. Opening track “A1″ is a light-hearted take on near-Reich-ian tone permutations, chopped and phased for your listening pleasure. “A2″ and “A3″ resemble the warm but clinical patchwork orchestrated by Keith Fullerton Whitman at his most “playful,” while “B1″ and “B2″ are more fluid and almost rhythmic, as though Paul Dickow’s Strategy guise wasn’t interested in flooding the dancefloor. Pick up a copy of Codicil directly from Adhesive Sounds now before copies run out.
—Decoder
Photography by Karl Fousek.
AS008
