early notes on capacity
three different perspectives from near and far:
Josh Mason (via Ned Milligan @ Florabelle)
“Among other things, Billy understands the sounds of failure. He’s able to harness the broken and the battered and elevate it to a reverent position in a way I think few can. What’s more, he does this in a technologically agnostic way, the development of which I have thoroughly enjoyed across his oeuvre. It’s pretty clear that he is in command of his tools, or perhaps, he recognizes them as such, and he executes his vision regardless of what he holds in his hand at any given moment. He and I have been chasing A Thing in different ways and lanes through the years, and I suspect many would be surprised at the balancing act required to achieve a level of cohesion in this vein of production. I’ve been very fortunate to have seen behind the curtain some leading up to this newest release, and while I’m sure I risk veering into hyperbole here, ‘capacity’ is probably the most concise documentation yet of the trip he’s been on, and I for one, am here for it.”
“Remarkably engaging glitch-ambience from hyper-prolific San Francisco based sound artist Billy Gomberg, which has every right to be considered in the same breath as the likes of genre greats Oval, Jan Jelinek, Fennesz and so forth. Gomberg has been at this particular cliff-face for close to two decades now, and has aligned with a number of credible labels along the way, but Capacity has to surely register as a new high point. Built from a number of locational recordings, there’s a very ‘in nature’ feel to Capacity, that sense of drifting winds, running waters and the flow of people and things within and amongst which gets to the heart of what makes glitch such an appealing construction – at its best, the loops of stutters, feedback, noise and decay offer a vivid conveyance of our human place within the world at that interface where the natural and the artificial meet. It’s hard to place much of these sounds, but that’s besides the point, for it’s what they impress that matters. Suffused with a kind of lingering pathos, I found much of these 35 minutes to be unexpectedly emotional, almost elegiac at times in ways that reminded me, again unexpectedly, of Hana Stretton’s tiarn and its meditations on ‘ecological trauma’. The world is literally falling away before our eyes and in its blossoming and then disintegrating reverberations, Capacity seems to capture that experience perfectly. A genuine out-of-nowhere year contender for sure.”
Silence & Sound
(orig in French, google translate paste below)
Billy Gomberg ‘s music knows how to take the time to move through space and lead us into territories tinged with hazy colors, heaps of textures intersecting different materials, to obtain elusive titles evaporating through luminous interstices of ephemeral density.
Capacity tests our patience, plays with our ability to stay focused and follow the gilded field recordings tagged on cellulose walls. Strings of sounds dance on shards of glass, diffusing their halo of music through funnels directed towards a floating dreamlike beyond.
Billy Gomberg sculpts sound, constructs impermanent statues capable of holding our breath and exhaling the splendor of the world through silk filigree sewn onto grooves of wax with a granular wear. Magical.
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