Pulse Emitter - Swirlings LP

The full scope of his wide-ranging experiments in synthesis and electronic arrangement encompasses everything from expansive new age drift exercises, to purely textural noise sculpting, to the strain of post-Berlin School cybernetic prog composition that characterized newer albums like Through The Portal (Phinery, 2016) and Digital Rainforest (Beer on the Rug, 2015). Swirlings, his frst full-length LP on Hausu Mountain, follows a split release with Brett Naucke (HAUSMO53, 2017), and albums on labels like Immune, NNA, and Constellation Tatsu. Swirlings fnds Pulse Emitter tempering his more recent melodic streak with a host of time-distorting compositional strategies from the ambient and drone traditions, yielding a hybridized vision of his music that spans distinct eras and styles of his output. Taken in the context of his cosmic song titles and long-standing incorporation of sci-fi themes and imagery, the album bears the outward signs of the ambient record that seeks to evoke the experience of deep space travel, or observing a lush garden of alien fora from the deck of a starship. Groetsch ornaments his gorgeous harmonic whirlpools and majestic spreads of smeared drones with layers of crystalline melody and fourishes of granular processing. His pieces stretch through minimal expanses in which individual pads and bass notes sketch out a churning rhythmic grid before blooming into mosaics of interlaced arpeggios and lead voices. Pulse Emitter approaches electronic composition from the perspective of a master craftsman, harnessing a fine-tuned sense of narrative development and a penchant for juxtaposing contrasting synth voices from far-flung corners of his arsenal of softsynths, app-based programs, and hardware instruments. While he conjures time-lapse vistas of galaxies and nebulas in our mind’s eye, the sophistication of his arrangements and the universal beauty of his harmonies pushes the lens inward on the self, resulting in a journey that is as personal and internal as it is celestial.