Mort Aux Vaches

A rich, low hum begins the disc by this Icelandic trio — dense, fluctuating from speaker to speaker. Several minutes in, to the listener's surprise, a female voice counting in German is heard, reminiscent of disc two from AMM's Laminal, fading out as the drone gets louder and begins to be infested with taps and clicks as well as distant, barely heard melodies. The piece, "One by Two," retains an ominous quality throughout; one of the attractive qualities of this disc is that each of the three works has a distinctive character. The second is jumpier, even nervous, while "On the Right There" reverts to a drone but without the slight sense of dread, inhabiting a more contemplative zone, before mutating into a mélange of organ-like tones accompanied by a jackhammer. The quasi-tonal underpinnings of the pieces make for a much "easier" listen than might otherwise be the case, and listeners new to this genre of music might find it a convenient entryway. Stilluppsteypa has staked out unique ground in the flowering electronic, glitch-improv arena; Mort aux Vaches (the title is the same as numerous issues on the Staalplaat label) gives a good picture of what the group is capable of. Recommended not only for the free improv aficionado but also for the adventurous rock fan.