Genre: Drone Ambient
01 Shortwave Chamber
02 Empty Nest
03 Tweaked Cycles
04 Dronefield
05 Scientific Barrage (Dance Mix)
06 Dialogue Feedback
07 Please Remain Calm
08 Evaporate (Edit)
09 Slice And Hum
10 Feed And Drone
Mystified hails from St. Louis, Missouri, and has been pumping out has varied takes
on drone/ambient music at a frantic pace during the past few years. With over one
hundred release’s under his belt, it always amazes me at the quality and variation
of his work. Sometimes you get extremely minimal uplifting drones laced with beats,
sometimes you get thickly layered, bass heavy fare that verges on dark ambient or
minimalist industrial music. “Displaced Assemblage” tends to fall into the later,
with hints of the prior. His use of field recordings being digitally manipulated
also plays a large role in his sound.
The disc start with the eerie “Shortwave Chamber”. Several layers of dense and
static-ridden shortwave radio recordings are layered in a tremolo driven rhythm,
with male and female voices fading in and out of the mix. The use of shortwave
radio is very apparent throughout the album, either being used in an obvious way
like this track, or used as a tone generator for the many start drones of the
album. “Evaporate” includes the best use of field recordings in my opinion. Distant
hums, and the faint sounds of water can be heard, while the sounds of birds calmly
chatting fades into the forefront. The track very slowly morphs into a locked
rhythm of the bird calls, bass drum, and short glitch’s of the other field
recordings to make in intricate static-laced beat. It’s a very cool effect!
Out of the ten or so Mystified albums that I own this one would definitely go in
the top three. I love the sounds produced by shortwave radios, and they are used
here in a fantastic way in combination with the processed field recordings.
Although Thomas uses a laptop to process his sounds it never gets overtly digital,
and sounds just as warm and inviting as many albums made on analog gear. The
variety of influences and styles shown here should offer something to anyone
interested in ambient/drone music, and this disc is just as good a place as any to
dive into one of the best practitioners of minimal music going today.
