Conic Sections by XOR Gate
The Electro scientist on top form with a thirty minute experimental track
With XOR Gate Gerald Donald adds another alias to his considerable canon of production work (alongside the likes of Dopplereffekt, Drexciya, Arpanet, Der Zyklus) and, as expected, the Electro scientist presents his work with a weighty concept that is guaranteed to give you a headache if you linger too long on the mathematical logic of XOR gates and conic sections. Thankfully you can ignore all that guff and just get immersed in the wonderful, albeit familiar, style of music he's known and celebrated for.
With a retro-80's, new computer technology sensibility, Conic Sections is like an audially-anotated unit test of a ZX81 motherboard, a thirty minute exercise, split up into eight sections, that traces the flow of logic dependent on command inputs and plays back the results in a form we can all appreciate. Cold melodies and ghostly sounds merge and flow in a single soundpiece, with interludes like Foci and Hyperbola providing breathing space to key moments like Major Axis. My highlight is Ellipse, which is arguably now among his best work, with its emotive topline and tense arpeggiated synth.
- Rating: 8/10
- Listens: 13
- Highlight: Ellipse
- Label: Tresor
- Release Date: 30th Mar 2018