ALEX CRISPIN
"Open Submission" C30
(Constellation Tatsu)




One of my favorite games to play while listening to Constellation Tatsu batches is “Which tapes pair best together?” and this Spring ’18, I’m pretty sure Lunaria and Alex Crispin are the sweet-and-savoriest team there is. For every viscous, sublime drone from Lunaria, Alex Crispin answers with airy, brooding minimalism. &while both albums celebrate the transportive nature of binaural swells and reverb, it is the latter’s narrative movements of grace and melancholy, evoked by clear chimes, Icelandic keys (think Múm’s earlier work), poignant tonewheel organ, sparse smooth-jazz guitar accents (shush- you know you eat this shit up when done right!), Basinskian textured backing loops (and, well, time, itself, really) that all come together to round out the former’s all-seeing/hearing bliss. This is not to say that “Open Submission” does not stand sturdily on its own, but that, like the title suggests, it is meta-versatile and deft in being open to any interpretation one’s consciousness chooses to submit.


http://www.ctatsu.com/portfolio/open-submission/
and/or
http://alexcrispin.co.uk/

-- Jacob An Kittenplan