Eric Cook: Audioblog

Posted some older individual tracks:

• Eric Cook: “Underscores and Asteriks“: Mitten State Transmissions compilation (2006).
• Eric Cook: “PassAgg” (unreleased track, 2004).
• Persona: “Tinnitus“: My Malady compilation (2003)

Recorded 2004, released 2005,on Public Eyesore.
Download it here. Buy it here.

Reviews:
(Dead Angel) I was very impressed with this. It’s hard to tell what he’s using. Mr. Cook has an excellent grasp on using little pops and hisses well. This whole album is a swirling trip through broken electronic sound… occasional, dare I say ‘ambient’ bassy tones pop up now and then, but for the most part this is looping, crackly electronics. Glitchy to the core. - Dillon Tulk

(Indieville) Dark experimental soundscapes that are actually interesting to listen to, how about that? I’m creeped out and yet deeply mesmerized by Cook’s ambient pitches, tones, beeps, and clicks. It’s hard not to call this noise at times, but it’s far from too abrasive - in fact it’s probably as accessible as this music comes. In “Steady State Theory” you’re taken through an evil underground factory, moving past foreign, mutant machinery. As you wander further the sounds echo and reverberate in the background as new ones appear on the horizon. “Early Academy,” a live performance for University of Michigan radio station Ann Arbor, sounds like a trip through a telephone wire. Brief “My Side Your Side My Side” closes off the record with some nice dark tones. Asymptosy is a record’s worth of great, dark, lovely experimental electronic sound… it should more than garner a look. - Matt Shimmer

(Ampersand Etcetera) Three tracks of electronic ambient instrumentals. The first Steady state theory is the longest and shifts through a wide variety of sounds/moods: starting glitchy abstract with deep bass, bloops, processed gongs; more gamey synths, edgier, harsher, spooky and abstract, opening space and possible processed voices in – ebbing and flowing throughout, it maintains your interest through change rather than focus, variations that catch you. Early academy was recorded live and works more minimally – clicks, tones, white noise, burbles – the looping and changing is more obvious, almost like you can see the workings. But it is also more intimate and compelling in its straightforward way, reminding me of Matt Thomas. Finally My side your side my side is a short interaction of shimmering washes, deep woobles with an neat edge. The variation makes this an enjoyable and absorbing release. - Jeremy Keens

The fourth and final track is now posted. This one rounds things out on a bit of a positive note, with a bit of lightly resonant percussion turning into something like repeated guitar strumming. It turns a little more questioning on the end, with brushed metal and close-mic’ed cymbal.

I need to work on the artwork to finish the release off, and then I’ll post the whole thing as a zip on the discography page.

Part three of four posted. This one is a bit darker again — slow drone build-up then layers of static rain sizzling before scraping and clanking out to a finish. Manages to have a good forward propulsion for the main section without being explicitly beaty.

Mouthless part 2.

Reaktor klank-banking, turning into long tone drones with light cymbal-scratch overlays.

The base of these tracks are taken from an appearance on Jason Voss’ show on WCBN in March of 2003. I’ve always been partial to pieces of them, but they needed a bit of editing, cleaning up and smoothing. Which put them on the back burner (for longer than I ever intended!), and explains why this post is tagged both as New audio and Old audio.

I made several passes at going back and re-performing better/different versions with the same setup of Reaktor ensembles, FX, contact mic’ed cymbal, etc, but I always wound up liking the original live versions best. So I finally decide to get these into a more coherent whole for release, and I’m pleased both with how they’re shaping up, and how the material seems to still feel valid to me 4 years later.

First, the audio. Two tracks from 1997, multitracked metal percussion and delays:

• MNML-02
• MNML-06

Now, the backstory:
These were included on a release-that-wasn’t called MNML — various experiments at minimal 4-track compositions. I put together a whole CDr package w/artwork etc, but only made 3 or 4 copies for friends, because most of it never felt finished enough to actually “release” (a fairly arbitrary distinction for a CDr, I’ll admit).

These were my favorite two tracks on the CD, and evidence I suppose that I still haven’t gotten my fill of the sounds of metal percussion in the 10 years since then, since it formed the base of some of the later Persona releases (see Splinter and Last Songs), and remained a key component/sound source of my work with Ben B. and solo.

I should think a bit more about why that is..

Another live clip from 2003, this time at the Detroit Art Space. Again, abstract electronics/live sample manipulation, metallic textures.

This blog doesn’t seem to be doing much to get me going on new music, but it has been a good motivator to post the old stuff that has been kicking around my harddrive for a while now.

Ben and I had a productive period of rehearsals and shows in 2003. This show (@ Detroit Contemporary) from July of that year is a bit more active/variable than the more edited material on the
Framed/Frozen CD, but with a similar palette.

Another old rehearsal tape find, from the pile of 4-tracks in the closet. A big loping Sabbath-y riff from Mike forms the pivot point around which Geoff spins like a crazed bee with a wah pedal strapped to its chest. Satisfyingly thick guitar tone in places.

Did I say that I was mainly going to post new stuff? Ok, I said that, but apparently I was lying. I’ve been slowly digitizing choice bits out of Gravitar 4-track rehearsal tapes off and on over the past couple of years, with a goal of …what? Putting it online? One more LP? Who knows.

Anyway, this was a one-off from a rehearsal tape June 97 that I really liked, basically a one-note drone jam: Lost Twanger

More of this stuff in the pipeline over the next week or so.