Tim Coster - Star Mill
CDR from CLaudia (CLaudi_015)
Archived item from CLaudia
New solo recordings, three long drone pieces over 37 minutes. Made from layered instrument, object, & field recordings.
Recorded March - July 2007, using bass guitar, ocarina, accordian, bells, harmonica, mbira, cloves, bottles, bowls, alarm clock, wood and string.
REVIEWS:
"The name Tim Coster has popped up before in these virtual pages. He is from those islands down under that are so isolated that if they want to hear experimental music, it's easier to make it themselves than buying import records. So everyone seems to be making music down there. A lot of people from New Zealand play in bands, but there is also a bunch of people who create music through laptops, such as Richard Francis, Mark Sadgrove and Tim Coster. 'Star Mill' is one, thirty-seven minute, piece (in what I believe to be three parts) of music that starts out with
some rain like sounds, and from there on things grow with great intensity, building, adding, building, adding. Layer upon layer, until a thick and heavy thunder cloud arises out of which sparks and thunder are discharged. Heavy duty drone music at work. To quite an extent in the field of digital processing, this one, and also more topheavy than some of the other drone workers. Which sets Coster quite nicely apart from the rest of the lot, which is great."
VITAL WEEKLY
"Drone works seem to be plentiful these days. I've always had a difficult time estimating the relative size of our little community. It seems that as the years pass, the number of new projects grows geometrically, so one can only assume that the listener base undergoes a similar reaction. Digital audio software advances in a similar fashion, making the listener immediately into the performer with only a modicum of effort and investment. Online magazines, such as this one, serve more to measure the incalculable release schedule of bedroom labels than to further discourse on musical methodology. By writing this review, I've also made a seemingly fixed record of a limited audio document's existence. Strictly utilitarian, right? (And also with the faintest tinge of rabid consumerism—It affects us worse than most.) On bad days, complete pessimism overwhelms me as I contemplate the apparent futility in trying to document the scene or promote a release that most people will never hear (or care to hear) no matter what glowing terms spill across the telephone wire. But then, something like "Star Mill" shows up in my mailbox.
Possessing New Zealander citizenship should seem a cliché in this day in age for outsider music (are we still outsiders?), but here's yet another entry in what should be an invasion, Tim Coster. I'm under the impression that he's primarily a laptop performer, blending field recordings and other audio sources. I tend to associate that technique with glacial precision at its best, and sterile stillness at its nadir. "Star Mill" feels a bit different. On this three-track, thirty-seven-minute excursion, we truly get the best of two competing aesthetics—sophisticated digital and (at least the feel) of workman analog. As the opening breathless salvos roll in, the desired sound-realm could either be the murky oak forest hiding demonic familiars or the last moments of fried antiquarian hardware. If I stare at the cover art, I suddenly hear the creaking of the pictured waterwheel, along with the spectres floating above the broken floorboard into the ephemeral night. What makes this recording breath are the milliseconds of "imperfections" that break the digital gloss, turning it into something alive and fragile (and not just a preprogrammed exercise). Normally, I listen to subtle drone musics while working. "Star Mill" never fails to make me lose my concentration. Now, I need to get back to what I should be doing. Beyond recommended. 9/10 " FOXY DIGITALIS
"Another cdr of slowly-uncoiling laptop drone from Tim Coster, this time made with bass guitar, ocarina, accordian, bells, harmonica, mbira, cloves, bottles, bowls, alarm clock, wood, string and field recordings. The sounds have a real winds-whistling-through-pines sense of unease to them."
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