Tarab - An Incomplete Yet Fixed Idea LP

Label: Aposiopese

Our Review:

"Careful arrangements of sonic rubbish." That's one hell of a great artist's statement, courtesy of Eamon Sprod (aka Tarab). Over the past decade, this Australian sound-artist has quietly produced some of the finer examples of composition through field recording. His work is a far cry from the pleasantries of a soft ambient whoosh set as the backdrop to various birdsongs plopped willy-nilly for the listener to identify. There's always the threat of psychological, psychic and existential violence lurking throughout Sprod's work. When the insect chorales push through to the foreground, it's symbolic of pestilence, disease, blight and the simple fact that much in the outback can fucking kill you. It's easy to tap into the ultra-violent, post-apocalyptic, doomsayer and/or isolationist scenarios mapped out elsewhere through the Australian psyche (e.g. Mad Max, Chopper, On The Beach, Bad Boy Bubby, etc.), and Sprod carves out his own niche in digging through the hinterlands of urban neglect, locating meaning of psychogeographical import (or the lack there of) within a recontextualized sound object. Since his debut Surfacedrift back in 2004, Sprod's work has steadily exhibited a maturation in conceptualization and aesthetic complexity, leading to his first piece of vinyl as An Incomplete Yet Fixed Idea.

He eschews any notation as to the sources of these sounds on An Incomplete Yet Fixed Idea, but their meaning is clear. This environment is a hostile one. Torn metal and shattered concrete rupture in tandem with stinging buzzes and noxious industrial vibration throughout the album that takes its composition cues from the G*Park, Dave Phillips and Francisco Meirino as well as Luc Ferrari and Michel Chion. Brilliant work as always, from Tarab.