Faultline

With Closer Colder, producer David Kosten has given the world an astonishingly moving, devastatingly beautiful work of electronic art, a modern-day masterpiece that defies categories and goes straight for the gut. Faultline easily bridges the worlds of “classical” with “post-club” electronics, bringing samples, found sounds and heavily fractured beats together with richly recorded live contributions from guest musicians. This is an album of contrasts, a brutally attractive world of sound created through tensions and emotionally charged resonance. The title track is exemplary, with open, honest piano, violin and bassoon riffs gliding over and dancing with washes of distorted sound. Their sensitive tones are often laid completely bare, reaching out to the listener who is then met with the repeated vocal sample of Dennis Hopper in Blue Velvet shouting "don't you fucking look at me." "Papercut" and "Control" feature similar musical contradictions, initially inviting one in via lovely refrains played on strings, piano or xylophone — all given free reign before being met with walls of crazed programming. "Mute" is an unbelievable epic, truly one of the most intensely gorgeous and layered pieces ever created, with builds, breaks, occasional beats, distorted washes of guitar, and the make-you-weep trumpet playing of Ian Carr. Kosten even manages to make lust-induced human simplicity sound deep. He constructed "Partyline Honey" around the voices and erotic desires of people speaking on a sex chat line; while they talk dirty he drops slow beats, empathetic bass lines, modem sounds, harmonica and distorted guitar, producing stop-in-your tracks results. Stark, but never bleak, Closer Colder is an absolute must-have.