Review: Eventless Plot - Recon

Recon is restless and placeless. The roster of performers is continuously swapped, while the sounds themselves pop into nothing and re-appear at the opposing end of the stereo field; it’s an unfriending shapeshifter of split-second reflex and vanishing vibrations, juxtaposed against slower-moving objects to cause time to unfold at multiple speeds simultaneously. The musicians are definitely housed within a zone of mutual musical understanding, but it’s a vast one – sounds enter with an uninhibited confidence, instantly accepted and absorbed into an atmospheric domain that thrives off its own contrasts and eclecticism.

There are squeaks of strained woodwind reeds and clarinet harmonies riding drawn out breaths, piano keys landing like gentle plops of water on a lake, electricity buzzing angrily from badly wired circuits, miscellaneous percussion and found sounds that send the mind into impulsive speculations as to their source. Only via careful mixing do these sounds avoid blotting out one another; they’re permitted to jostle but not encroach, causing the collages to heave and rise as a collective blanket while leaving enough space for light and oxygen to seep through the gaps. It’s quite a bizarre experience; the impulse of action and the meticulous planning of sonic architecture effortlessly co-exist, swooping and swerving through a sonic plain that constantly changes in dimension and hue.