Arising from a mammoth triple CDR released by Nick Willscher
(aka Zammuto) a few years back as a private pressing, Infraction brings to
light disc one of the Solutiore of Stareau trilogy (following the Apt. B
records release of disc three entitled, simply, willscher).
This disc one is a quiet atmospheric minimal soundscape. Distant radio
waves floating in the night, warm drones rising and falling, punctured by
a faint yet insistant pulsing rhythm. Deep listening in which surface
variation is so subtle - getting lost in the recording for hours is almost
inevitable if you give it the time. Time well spent.Accolades
"Top 10 of 2001" WNYU
Pertinent Links
Nick Zammuto's other gig 'The Books' with Paul de Jong Independent Reviews
"Zammuto is also sometimes known as "The Books" - and this is his fabulous debut album for Infraction. It is easy to forget, but a few years ago the release of Systemisch and Diskont 94 by Oval saw a quiet, subtle take on electronic minimalism become and grow into a conceptual field that has since then spawned the birth of a myriad of some welcome, and some not so welcome subgenre’s. Interesting, then, to listen to this long 70-minute piece by Nick Willscher that was recorded several years ago in New York and only now given a full CD release. Interesting because there is a very appealing parallel to be found here with Markus Popp’s early works – a kind of overwhelming, almost naïve approach to drift and tone that doesn’t really require any grounding in the academic side of music and music theory. If we forget for a second about the concept and concentrate instead on the sound – what we have here is an exploration of an ambience that is steeped in organic pulses and a warmth that cannot be reduced to ‘Click’ or ‘Pop’. Raved about by Hrvatski and I-Sound amongst others, this is simply and truly gorgeous" - boomkat.com
"Some time during the late 90s... hard to remember exactly when, a triple cd set showed up at a few of our doorsteps. a real mystery item, adorned with microscopic renderings of tic-tac-toe games long lost, with a fresh leaf tucked away inside. this was the debut offering by one nick zammuto, later known as 1/2 of the books. well... a few of use were very excited about this particular 3cd release, especially the Apartment B Records clan, who went and reissued the third disc as ":willscher". a year or so went by, then suddenly this cd, a reissue of the first disc of said set, was released with very little hoo-haa. when i asked jason at rioux's when he had last spoken to nick, he said "not for a year now". this was during the period when nick had decided to drop all of the responsibilities of modern life and go hiking, for about 6 months. so here's this cd reissue which nick may not even know about... regardless, it's a late-night monster, all sort of drones finely rounded off to the nearest whole... a continuous 70 minute piece (broken up evenly over 14 5:00 pieces) cast of electric guitar/bass sonorities & various lengths of pvc tubing for pitch-accurate overtone emphasis. nick’s the captain of the craft we’re all riding to the sun, know that..." - keith fullerton whitman / mimaroglu music sales
Nick Willscher is a New York City based sound sculptor whose ambitious CD-R trilogy "Solutiore of Stareau" probably slipped beneath your radar last year. Well, don't worry, it did mine too. Now disc one is available as the debut release from Infraction Records, the new in house imprint of music retailer Riouxs Records, following up on the reissue of disc three as "Willscher" by Apartment B Records. This 70 minute continuous piece (indexed at the noticeable transitions every five minutes) is a fairly minimal, malleable mass of low volume sound. Tones and soft fuzz abruptly flicker on/off to give a cut-up pulse to the otherwise lukewarm haze. Unidentifiable fragments surface and sink helping to create an otherworldly effect. Meanwhile, a beautiful, recurring drone signature slowly swan dives in and out of a handful of tracks. But perhaps the most beautiful moment of all is the deconstruction that takes place within the final track, the previous hour plus gently fading from short-term memory in crackles and signal noise. Altogether it makes me think of what a Vladislav Delay track re-processed by Kurt Ralske might sound like: soundscape bliss, though, not quite as breathtakingly so as Delay's Anima". Regardless, keep an ear out for this guy (as well as Infraction) 'cause he's definitely onto something. Zammuto has since appeared on numerous compilations and the drastically different "Full Martyr Status" remix EP is available for download from notype.com" - mark weddle / brainwashed.com
The premiere release on Ohio record shop Rioux's new label Infraction, overseen by Jason Bryant (who also designed the suggestively-minimalistic cover art) is in fact a re-release. Several years back, Nick Willscher, trading under the name Zammuto, privately released an ambient trilogy, of which this disc is the first installment (the third disc was previously made more widely available on the Apt. B label). The darkly quiet, enticingly distant landscape spread over fourteen tracks is in sum actually one long, seventy minute suite of some bonafide beauty, not entirely unlike the minimalist sounds recently generated by, say, Jonathan Coleclough. The only problem this reviewer has with 'Solutiore of Stareau' is the fact that while this nimbly composed and subtle music eggingly draws the listener in, his willingness to enter into this alien landscape is often repulsed by recurring, out of synch metallic glitches (borrowed from Oval?) mixed way up front. This however is a personal prejudice; other listeners will perhaps find these electronic clicks to be rhythms by which to orient themselves. During roughly the last quarter of the piece, it becomes quite Enoesque, 'On Land'-ish, if you will. In the final analysis, this is a strong, well thought-out piece of warm, subtle drones, fragile radio waves, and enough colour and slowly-evolving variation to keep listeners coming back for further journeys of discovery. It is only hoped that the second part of the trilogy is granted wider availability. Posted by Stephen Fruitman at 18:13, 28 Sep 2001