I8U – GRASSHOPPER MORPHINE (CDR by Piehead Records)
One of two new releases on the limited CDR Piehead Records label and twice by Canadian artists.
I8U, who has a real CD on Multimedia Pandora and a CDR on Bake Records previously (plus maybe others I don’t know) and who plays with Martin Tetreault, David Kristian and Guylaine Bedard (a photographer). It was David Kristian who changed her way of thinking about music. Turning back to simple ideas and flows, she has eight new pieces which are best described as utter minimalism. Sometimes, as in ‘Numb Summer’ they take the form of one flowing chord, with added high pitched sounds, but mostly they take the form of a repetitive sound patterns. Not really to be described as rhythmic or techno inspired, but rather more dry clicks being repeated over and over. There is also a nice piss take at Nurse With Wound’s Fashioned To A Device under the name of ‘Sun Dogs Rising’, with the same intense feedback like drones. Very well balanced between rhythms and drones. (FdW) – Frans de Waard, Vital Weekly