a nothing / a void is an album of “fragments, detours and half-formed ideas” that coalesce into a whole – even if this is not the composer’s intent. Asher Fusco (St. Catherine’s) is more interested in texture than in form, process than in result; yet the mind’s tendency toward pareidolia places the puzzle pieces together, from frame to interlocking fragment. The album is incredibly homespun, recorded on the banks of the Delaware River, on a porch in Saugerties, New York and at the artist’s home in Brooklyn. In deference to its title, a nothing / a void feels like a solid something, operating as a sonic diary of snapshots and intimate moments, occasionally reminiscent of Philadelphia’s Hour but touching on the pointillist leanings of 80s micro-electronics as well.
One thing the liner notes do get right is the feeling that the artist, and by extension the music, is in no hurry to arrive. “Kingdom of Dollars” rests in a shimmer that swiftly subsides, as if the pattern is the purpose. “The Canary” splits the difference between ambient and post-rock, glowing rather than growing, content to rest in reverberation. During the first half, each rise in density turns out to be another false alarm, until the guitars are traded and the electric bass fuzzes in the current. Still there is no crescendo, but on an hour-long album, not every track needs a resolution.
One begins to cherish the set in segments rather than in tracks: the tape manipulation of “MODO” leading to the slow, sweet beeping of “No Umbrella,” which brings to mind the classic Spekk label compilation Small Melodies. But then, as if to confound expectations, the eight-minute single hits. “Poem (1956)” features Ross Martin on Fender Rhodes and Leia Slosberg on flute, and is rife with both texture and structure, the melodic introduction leading to a soft, swooning interlude and a percussive, post-rock finale.
More than anything, the album is one of mood. Save for its loudest crest (in “Box of Boxes”), the music is patient, calm and unhurried. While the tempos are slow, the interest is sustained by the variety of timbres. The back half of “Blue Mountains” is particularly lovely, blending folk-esque guitar with field recordings and light electronics; and the birds of “Coda” are positively buoyant. “No point is the point,” writes Fusco. Yet in the same way as Seinfeld was called “a show about nothing,” a nothing / a void makes an impact in spite of itself. (Richard Allen)
a closer listen 