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Countering the more mainstream Electronic Music, where most want to be part of the next new thing, Tim Walters realizes works meant for the smart, adventurous listener - or maybe just for someone wanting to have their palette cleansed of melody, harmony and rhythm. The CD Neither Here Nor There (39'43") offers six tracks of intrepid aural maneuvers, solitary wanderings and waning electrical currents. Inspired by true thought this album moves to a place beyond the audience's thinking, where raw emotions and primal reflexes become a descending swirl. Pushing the limits of whatever means we use to listen, Neither Here Nor There places us more in Walters' meditation than we may know. Unleashing sound from electricity tenebrous charged particles seem to swim in space. In rivulets of sustaining tones we cross into the heliopause, or perhaps to a deeper level of the subconscious. Dulcet notes sustain, then reorder into something more buzzing and metallic, only to become round and purple prior to their retreat into silence. Close listening will be rewarded as this technique is so meticulous, and the unique perspective and approach achieve a full and strange abstract expression. Today there is so much music being made with computers that Neither Here Nor There may seem to reside at the outer limits of a genre that has progressed so rapidly over the decades. In an automated age, where only traces of human visitation are made out, this artist is following a tradition of innovation that allows sound to tell the story. Walters' ideas are felt at every level, and in every moment of this music. Please do not allow the experimentation to scare you off. Spirit should always be rewarded in an era inhospitable to ideas.
Chuck van Zyl/STAR'S END - 21 November 2019
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