Neurometrik

Album review

Richard H. Kirk's Electronic Eye project is all about surveillance, counter-intelligence, rogue espionage, and the subtexts of subterfuge. Kirk grafts tenuous repetitive electronic patterns to clandestine, disembodied voices, chants from the elders of nations in genocide, and melodies wrung from the choked digital relays of computers, samplers, and bastardized radio processing. His sonic constructs are wire tapping for the ear rather than the foot. But these rhythmic works don't just trade in the abstract. Kirk's notion is to lull one into a sense of false complacency then subtly massage the listener's unconscious via digital diversionary tactics.

"Hey Chief" resuscitates the powwow with a succession of analog whispers and chilled reggae beats, while "Free I Society" evokes the ghost of Lee Perry and Augustus Pablo shooting their dub mouths off in ill-blowing electronic windstorms. Kirk destabilizes the motorik rhythm machine of "Bush Techno Incident," melding the third world with the new world order. He lays bare an African ritual of sampled congas, talking drums, and other indigenous beat makers in a silicon valley of tense, sequenced blips and hamfisted synths. NEUROMETRIK issues mental exercises for the conspiracy challenged. Open your mind to it.

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