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21 Pulse Eclipse (73'30") unsettles the digital dust. This debut by Bart Hawkins unwinds our minds with eight tracks of gray matter vibrating tones, textures and experiments. His is an unusual realm of different musical laws, and music from this zone will reveal as much about the composer as it does about the listener. 21 Pulse Eclipse resounds in the abyss between dreams. Its lack of reference points may bother some, while in others this feature will be welcomed - for all the questions it will provoke. In its provision of a great many forbidding, fugitive sounds, this work may seem to offer an overfull emptiness. Its stacked layers of oscillations and modulations produce an undulating audio field. The denser areas of sound may be perceived as disjunct, non-directional and dissonant, while just across the landscape a cloud-like mass of harmony slowly drifts closer. With little in the way of a tonal center, a consonance may arise out of the random pulsing of two oscillators - an exercise which offers insight into the relationship between sound and the psyche. With no frame of reference to anything in the natural world, Hawkins' realizations remind us of a more complicated existence. Hair raises from the skin as electrical charges build up. When uncertainty becomes the effective state, time disconnects, and an unexpected beauty emerges. For all the emphasis on the machinery of Modular Synthesis truly 21 Pulse Eclipse comes from the tradition of music as a product of human thought. Whether considering composition, performance, listening, or appreciation the constraints and capabilities of consciousness play the greatest formative role. Our response is completely internal. Upon its absorption this release shows signs of deepening the mystery of our condition - and so renew one's sense of wonder.
Chuck van Zyl/STAR'S END - 3 Octoberber 2019
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