Timelapse
Label: Cantaloupe
Length: LP
Media: CD
Format: Album
WorkNameSort: Timelapse
The method that R. Luke DuBois uses to make music ‘ something he calls ‘time-lapse phonographyâ?� ‘ will be familiar to those who have dabbled in plunderphonics or even mash-ups, as DuBois crafts his work out of parts of other works. However, rather than out-of-control sampling or beat-matching soundclashes, this ‘phonographyâ?� compresses music into its most basic tonality, making for haunting, elemental sounds that bear no resemblance to their source material. You will not recognize the works that DuBois employed in the creation of Timelapse, which is perfectly ironic, since the centerpiece of the disc is the four-part ‘Billboard,â?� which allots each song to make the storied chart exactly one second for every week it was a No. 1 hit. Thus, the most famous songs of the past four decades are boiled down to nothingness and then recompiled into an ambient masterpiece. Fascinating, dizzying and perhaps the musical equivalent of a Jetsons meal-in-a-pill.
This article appears in Jun 7-13, 2006.