Kangding Ray - Pruitt Igoe

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  • Pruitt-Igoe is one of the most striking sequences from Koyaanisqatsi, a masterpiece of cinematography and soundtracking. In the sequence, the immense high-density housing project of the same name in St. Louis, is shown completely deserted and extensively vandalised before being demolished. With the track names, this release is clearly an allegory for the project, if not paying tribute directly to the film, and Raster-Noton mainstay Kangding Ray incorporates the label's signature digital sharpness, and masterfully reflects the estate itself and the film's bleak prophesies of social demise, to chilling effect. Viewed from a distance, these structures are made of so many artifacts that they seem almost homogeneous. But upon closer inspection, the clutter with which they're constructed is meticulously arranged, with rough bit-crushed distortion and shards of high frequency crackling around one another. Once you're within them, not analysing but simply feeling, a precise glitch funk emerges. Corroded and dense dancehall rhythms in "Fall," the tireless pounding of brick-on-brick in "Rise," advancing bulldozers stuttering with broken mechanisms in Alva Noto's Remodel. And although Ben Frost destroys most rhythm, shards of glass and the remnants of an empty two-step can still be identified through the terrible dust clouds that remain: It's what Burial might sound like if his mourning turned to scathing damnation.
  • Tracklist
      A1 Pruitt Igoe (Rise) A2 Pruitt Igoe (Alva Noto Remodel) B1 Pruitt Igoe (Fall) B2 Pruitt Igoe (Ben Frost Demolition)
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