Reflectors

It's perhaps fitting that Nickolas Mohanna is a past student of Bob Ostertag, given the presence of field recording and manipulation at work on Reflectors. But this 2011 release is more alchemical in its impact, moving from the potential immediacy of a field recording to something transformed into a sonic space available only in the end result. "Neon Agents" begins Reflectors with a kind of shimmering keyboard brightness, somewhere between Oneohtrix Point Never and Experimental Audio Research perhaps — a gentle float with a darker undercurrent and bubbling semi-loop lurking below. That full sense of a transformed digital synth approach comes to the fore in full on "Color Theory," and as such is both an attractive and now heavily familiar-sounding creation, though the slow scrape and rage of guitar as it progresses add another texturing that creates a greater depth. "Solar Mechanism" settles into a peaceful roil, a slow rhythmic breathing of flanged keyboards with additional elements shooting in and out of the mix, aimed at contemplation. "Grows Lush in the Night" slows things down further, a sonic float that's disturbing but not unsettling. "Mott Street" serves as a short transitional number between "Color Theory" and "Solar Mechanism," but otherwise the compositions stand on their own.