2 out of 5

Label: Broken Press

Produced by: Thomas Garrison (mastered by)

I appreciate the pitch, I appreciate the design, but the execution doesn’t quite get me there.

What this is: 2-5 minute “sequences” of improvised atmospherics, using light drum beats and some synths. That can definitely be fine, and our artists here have proven pedigrees as Meridian Arc (Crawshaw) and on the rockier side of things, Terminal Fuzz Terror, both of those closely tied onto the label on which this appears.

But: ‘Bud’ was early in the process of Broken Press morphing in to the SFI label, and BP’s musical identity was somewhat mixed with their printing press business, and thus early projects could fall into the sort of whimsy defined by Bud’s description: “a live rescore to the film Air Bud reinterpreted as a B&W drama.” The artwork is done up like an old VHS, Bud on the cover in a degraded, uncolored photo, looking rather like a Harmony Korine knockoff. I mean – I laughed, I won’t lie. Unfortunately, by splitting this up into the aforementioned sequences, whether or not the project was intended with any serious intentions, it neither builds up any steam, or manages to tell a story that justifies those sequences. This type of music, by my opinion, works best in longform or, if shorter, with more concise and identifiable themes. There is a theme that occasionally reappears, but it’s too loosely applied to feel like it represents anything narrationally; my point being that this doesn’t come across as an effective score, nor is it a really compelling standalone listen. It’s pleasant! Which isn’t the worst thing, for sure, except stood against other works from these artists, it has very little identity beyond that pleasantness.