Daniel Menche - Sirocco - CD

Sirocco by Daniel Menche is the first recording by him created by utilizing sound sources from several other sound artists. Andrew Lagowski, Asmus Tietchens, Main, John Duncan, Scanner, Illusion Of Safety, Merzbow, ErikM, B. Labelle and AMT submitted one minute sections of sound for Daniel Menche to work with and to create a long continuous drone track by completely degrading and melting the source sounds and massively layering these to form one long graceful and intense storm to heat and scorch the speakers. Sirocco is a tremendously dynamic and wonderfully textured drone experienece.

“Menche's music is built around drones that stand tall and stretch deep and wide.”

Portland, Oregon's Daniel Menche is one of those almost invisible mutating creatures digging holes under the ground of common artistic certainty, describing himself as a "mangler" and a "melter" of sounds from the most disparate of sources, from bodily functions to gorgeous field recordings (check out his work with Kiyoshi Mizutani on Garden and Song of Jike). In Menche's soundscapes, everything is remorselessly modified in dramatically charged lumps of pulsating tones and scorching spectr,a carrying both a highly engrossing, hypnotizing allure and the power to burn both your mental circuits and your speakers (careful with that loudness button). For Sirocco, Menche has remodelled beyond all recognition materials sent by SETI, Asmus Tietchens, Main, John Duncan, Scanner, Akira Rabelais, Illusion of Safety, Merzbow, erikm, Brandon Labelle and AMT (quite a list), but don't think for a nanosecond that it's a simple helping of "Menche Remixes." Imagine instead an android chef gathering up all aural junk-food leftovers and recycling them in strangely perfumed radioactive gravy. When Menche redesigns harsh visuals and inharmoniousness, transforming rotting thistles into raw symmetry – he calls it "vehement beauty" – his contribution to current evolutional trends in acousmatics can't be ignored. Bear that in mind while you thrill to Sirocco. ~ MR Paris Transatlantic Magazine