Audiobook

About

As ambient and electronic as Sam Gendel’s music can get, his alto saxophone is often detectable at the center of it. That’s less the case on <i>AUDIOBOOK</i>, a full-length album conceived with illustrator Marcella Cytrynowicz, a logical result of their many smaller audio-visual collaborations. Synth textures and programmed rhythmic pulses (not drums or percussion, per se) interweave in short, pattern-oriented pieces to make a soundscape without a clear beginning or end. Tracks are titled in alphabetic pairs, from “AB” to “YZ,” reinforcing a sense of continuous motion. Saxophone articulation starts to peek through on “OP,” and even more clearly on “YZ,” but it’s disguised to fit the prevailing abstract ambient context. The fleeting organ-like improvisation on “UV” is an intriguing surprise, however. Released around the same time as <i>COOKUP</i>, <i>AUDIOBOOK</i> exists on its own wavelength, revealing yet more facets of Gendel’s imagination.

via Apple Music