I’m always happy to receive new releases by LEM; you gotta know that by now. Why? It’s a really active label, and even though we find quite a few recurrent names, they always sneak in new names and new artists. So, as a label, they (or he, being Steve Davis from +DOG+) keep surprising. So, a whole batch we got this time has a few titles sent to me; FdW does others.
‘Broken And Dilapidated’ by Juice Machine is another new name on LEM, although … The name Juice Machine is new to me, but it is a project with many releases already; I just hadn’t heard of it! Behind Juice Machine are Roger H. Smith (a.k.a. Chefkirk) and Heather Chessman. They release a few titles yearly with mixed experiments of/with / combination / and musique concrete. It’s a difficult one for me, as it’s just outside my comfort zone, so I honestly can’t tell you if it’s good or bad; I can only tell you what the tracks did to me and a bit of an opinionated comment.
The album’s title might refer to the cut-up techniques (sampling analogue sources and field recordings), which would fit the outcome well. I’ll get back to that in a bit. Five tracks with a total playing time of 54 minutes. Composition-wise, it’s a kind of collage/cut-up technique with an intense layering. Though there aren’t a lot of sudden movements and breaks, it’s not the cut-ups like bang, boom, zzz, scream, drone, piano, toy box … It’s way more cut-ups on a micro level. Little sounds that – when looped – create layers or atmospheres that, in their turn, are combined into compositions. Even though each sound or layer is a composition of those sources itself.
At the same time, there is a feeling of deterioration because of how the sounds are processed Or what sounds are used. Use the sound of horses walking in the first track or the scarce use of human voices on tape at the end of “Passage of Time”, the opening of noise/rattle and voices on the closing “Nothing Surplus”. It’s all as if the stories being told are descriptions of the past, not something about the present or the future. And that is why I think the title “Broken And Dilapidated” is fitting. Don’t expect highly produced ultra-modern stuff, but expect a truthful story being told through available sounds.
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