It's All Just Another Aspect of Mannerism

　　'It's All Just Another Aspect Of Mannerism' is the debut album of Los Angeles based Logreybeam, aka Gabriel Morley. Having spent many years studying music at the prestigious Cal Arts Academy, Morley has taken his training and turned it on its head. Instead of merely sampling the instruments he has so painstakingly learned, he resynthesizes, filters and destroys them until few traces are left on the resulting sound recordings. Every track starts with a sound base and whether it be piano, strings or percussion only a hint of the original sound is left. All we hear are tones, trapped reverberations, the sounds that we are taught to ignore.
　　
　　Morley is better known as one half of electronica act 'Yasume'. His gritty percussive structures helped carry their album 'Where We're From The Birds Sing A Pretty Song' to great critical acclaim in 2003. It comes as quite a surprise then that in his debut solo record Morley dispenses with percussion almost entirely to make a record of drifting, crystalline beauty. He considers this as a far more personal work than Yasume, which was more of an outlet for his ADD induced beat creation skills. It is when working by himself he feels he can express his love of musique concrete and abstract sound design.
　　
　　The album opens in typically classical style, with the sounds of a laptop orchestra tuning their samples on 'Premonition'. This sets the tone of the record perfectly as it drifts seamlessly from Xenakis-influenced electrical drones into the cold, precise digital manipulations explored previously by artists such as Carsten Nicolai. It stops for breath mid-way through with 'Beetelguise', a wonderful reinterpretation of Danny Elfman's influential theme, proving that there is room for a wry smile in the po-faced world of the avante garde.
　　
　　As the album draws to a satisfying close with the mysterious 'Untitled' we are treated to a piece of field recording, delicately manipulated to brush the senses rather than barrage them with information. This kind of subtlety is rarely achieved, yet Gabriel Morley manages effortlessly. Such simple yet involving beauty comes around far too infrequently, which is what makes 'It's All Just Another Aspect Of Mannerism' such an essential work.

　　Premonition
　　Aspect Of Mannerism
　　Opiate Of The Masses
　　Post 'Du Mortem
　　Muado
　　Beetelguise
　　PreyWithMe
　　Somnus : Sleep
　　Untitled

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