Curtis Roads: Point Line Cloud (Apshodel) - CD / DVD released March 2005

Prior to his performance at Autechre’s memorable ATP festival in 2003, I’d never come across the works of this massively influential American composer. Responsible for pioneering the use of granular synthesis in the digital domain. This was his first and only commercially available release.

If, like me, you’re a bit thick and don’t quite understand the process and intent behind these works. Then you can safely ignore the academic excess and just focus on the bewildering and frankly alien sounds on offer. Fractional rhythms, tonal melodies and frequency variation pretty much run riot across the thirteen tracks.

‘Sculptor’ and ‘Tenth Vortex’ are the ones that really stand out. Where the spatial shift from intimate close-to-the-ear patterns to an echo-drenched expanse is noticeable. Its also the tracks where a significant amount of bass is employed.

The accompanying DVD is on the whole disappointing, just a series of analogue video sketches that seems to go against the very electronic nature of the music. For anyone remotely interested in computer music, this is pretty essential.