What, you want stability? No you don’t – I know for a fact that you
don’t. You want instability because
instability brings surprise. Yeah, sometimes it’s good, sometimes it’s bad, but
you never expect it, and that’s the key. Sequences is in no mood to deliver upon
expectation, instead opting to traffic in diversions, only to pull out the
proverbial rug when you think you’ve got him pegged. Niels Geybels, the Belgian
behind the Sequences brand, allows us to observe, through nineteen minutes of
tenuous constancy, what the churning lagoon sounds like from beneath the waves.
But please remove all ideas of pacific beachbound meditation – there’s not a grain of white
sand nor a palm tree within [earshot] of this release. I shouldn’t have to warn
you so explicitly – I figured the terms “instability” and “tenuous constancy”
would do the trick. You can never be too careful.
The cassette’s cover image provides all the visual cues you need to
submerge yourself and allow the currents to move you. Tones oscillate and
overwhelm, and sometimes recede for clarity. Changes occur on a dime, with
tracks often not reaching three minutes in length, allowing Geybels to fiddle
with perception as the whim strikes. Let it happen – there’s no resisting the
movement, the pull, the expanse greater than comprehension. Consider the
perspective of a turtle or a crustacean, whose titular shell protects it on its
path through life. The wide ocean beyond the immediate vicinity is an
unfathomable distance. Impose upon the creature’s tiny mind the philosophy of
meaning and its place within the space, and you break it. Carapace exists until it, too, breaks, fleeting, active, violent,
ultimately unstable, never disappointing.
--Ryan Masteller