“Screen Test” hovers in the space between memory and illusion, part of the soundtrack for Ken Jacobs’ In the Depth of Illusion: A Soundtrack for Nervous Magic Lantern. Whirring electronics shift between whimsical and ominous, threading through a haze of cassette hiss and field-recorded fragments. Static acts as a tactile surface, a sonic web that holds everything together and gives the piece its strange sense of presence. Voice snippets drift in and out like ghosts, fragile and flickering, carried along by the flow of warped tones and submerged rhythms. Sharp metallic pings and distant scrapes suggest movement through an unseen world, a city folded into itself. Aki Onda’s composition feels like a séance held inside a reel-to-reel machine, conjuring the dailiness of life with Jacobs and Flo while dissolving it into abstraction.
In the Depth of Illusion: A Soundtrack for Nervous Magic Lantern will be released by Room 40 on August 15. Stream below and pre-order HERE.
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