CD, self-released, 2004
www.lopside.net
Dean Hinds’ project, Lopside, has released a new album, “37”. Hinds explains how “37” was constructed: “On one particular afternoon I received 37 voice-mail messages. All of them inhuman beeps, buzzes and other random bursts of electronic noise. I recorded the messages, and those sounds later became the basis of many of the tracks on 37”.
“37” is a record that begins from electronic noises but transforms them into harmonious ambiental sounds. Although the album can be labelled as electronic, it has hardly any traces of breakbeat, setting the final result as a very homogenous record – some of the tracks remind of Vangelis (cf. “To The Point of Obscurity”), and others of Future Sounds of London (cf. “Saturday Driving Music”).
“37” can also be perceived as a very organic experience – from a purely electronic beginning, it is amazing to realize that the end result is a humanization of electronics. It ends up functioning as an introspective record, sending us in an initiation journey. Built on crescendos, it is as if one is travelling through the stratosphere. But every journey has its accidents. Being a warm record, “37” often illustrates a dark-light dichotomy which generates a sense of tension in the listener, a tension caused by the gradation of the rhythm, or the collision of soft and harsh sounds. All in all, however, the listener returns to the starting point, becalming and tranquil.
John Cage once said: “Which is more musical: a truck passing by a factory or a truck passing by a music school?”. Dean Hinds seems to have captured the beauty of noise and, as an alchemist, transformed it. Not all the tracks have the same strength, but it is indubitably a production to listen to attentively.
Who said that noises couldn’t be Zen?
[8/10]
— Bernardo Soares