François J. Bonnet & Stephen F. O'Malley - Cylene Suisse Redux (2021)

Revered auteurs Jim O’Rourke and Ryoji Ikeda morph stems from Bonnet & O’Malley’s 2019 live tour recording ‘Cylene’ with inception-like, oneiric allure - RIYL Bohren Und Der Club of Gore, Loren Mazzacane Connors, Neil Young’s ‘Dead Man’ OST

Given carte blanche to the original material, the two Japanese residents return complementary sides that speak to the original work’s quiet, probing tone and hallucinatory electro-acoustic gestures generated during from their live shows in Switzerland, a series of concerts “surrounded by friendship, lakes, mountains, and by nightfall” according to Editions Mego.

Perhaps the biggest surprise is Ryoji Ikeda’s edit, where the world-renowned sound artist, highly regarded for his style of pointillist minimalism, renders moments of the original in billowing widescreen. For 18 minutes he hones in on details of the original with time-slowing effect, combing out strands of its haunted peculiarities into a diaphanous, filigree lattice where starlight appears to radiate from the cracks, and making its discordant chord changes appear like tectonic events.

Jim O’Rourke’s magick is fully in place on the other side. He deconstructs and reassembles ‘Cylene’ in a parallel or inception-like dimension, lending it a steeper sense of gauzy, shimmering depth between its layers that makes it feel more like a quaalude-loaded Tony Iommi stopped by the GRM in the ‘70s and they somehow forgot the results until now.