Local Reviews: The Tenants of Balthazar’s Castle

Local Music Reviews

The Tenants of Balthazar’s Castle
The Moon
A. Star Records
Street: 10.14
TTOBC = Autechre + The Lord of the Rings (the book)

An ongoing and ever-changing experiment, TTOBC’s third full-length can be described as nothing other than an astoundingly beautiful and ambient stroke of genius. Even with so many established artists in the genre of noise, never has the spirit of imagination been captured like this. Accompanying so many familiar samples are ones that spawn from the obscure or bizarre. Even without the beat-driven framework present in almost any other genre, these sounds and noises are still woven together with extraordinary intricacy. An open-ended tale results, providing an incredibly unique way of interpretive storytelling that is displayed marvelously by TTOBC. With this album being so drastically different than the last two, the rest of the series (nine in total) are sure to differentiate themselves even further from the mainstream.