Bleep

Following major releases for Type, NNA Tapes, and a constant stream of cassette releases under a bewildering number of aliases, US underground wunderkind Jeff Witscher arrives on Bill Kouligas’ unstoppable PAN label with full-length ‘Vanilla Call Option’. The 11 tracks collected here approach themes of travel and boredom via the traditions of musique concrete and computer music. Hell has stripped his work of its previous classical sensuousness, bringing its glitch surface to the fore in a sound which recalls the likes of Florian Hecker, Peter Rehberg, or a more generous Alva Noto. The album impresses most though when more luxurious elements briefly appear: ‘Var_Len’ adds angel synth voices to the laptop scree, and ‘Merci Cheri’ is a gorgeous distant chorale which adds crucial variety.