Silver System Studies

Polypores

December 21, 2020

Electronic / Ambient

A collection of pieces written and performed live as an exercise in limitations, using a Doepfer Eurorack system. I designed the system myself (as opposed to one of the pre-built Doepfer systems) to have an emphasis on live performance. I prefer this to multitracking, so I allowed for multiple voices/sound sources. I was limited to 6U 84hp, so this had to be considered carefully. I wanted to create an album which represented the essence of this system. Analogue oscillators, squealing filters, voltages moving around and feeding things, like something between a science project and a natural ecosystem. It took some time to get used to it, but once I became familiar with the instrument, the ideas started to flow. This album represents a selection of the best tracks from 1 month's worth of recordings. Additional equipment: 2 x Korg SQ1 sequencers, EHX720 loop pedal, Specular Tempus reverb pedal, TC Flashback 2 delay pedal. Review by Barry Smethurst, Picadilly Records: "There are endless possibilities within a modular synthesizer, a barely limited set of manufacturers, functions and effects. Digital or analogue, subtractive or additive, but Eurorack all started with Doepfer. What then, could come from working within the constraints of a single manufacturer (in a single, brushed aluminium hue)? Left to anyone else the results could be less than impressive, but in the hands of Polypores, it’s a wonderfully widescreen affair. There are moments of crystalline beauty, richly shifting monoliths of sound and staggered rhythms, unhurried and transportive. It’s these moments that set the scene for what is the true beating heart of the album, the raw and minimally processed grit and machinated post-industrial march of unfettered electrical impulses. That’s not to say there aren’t moments of beauty, Silver System Studies is chock full of them, but in many ways it’s the antithesis of this that provides the unmissable allure of the LP. The crisp, insistent hum of oscillators, and the incidental coalescing of notes falling perfectly in-line before fading once again into a sea of syncopation. Brittle, melodic interludes juxtaposed with static interference and huge, cavernous bass before whirring into a kosmische frenzy. Beautifully warm at points and comfortingly jarring in others, rife with both Ying and Yang, and all accomplished on that small (ish) silver box."