Album Notes

One year after the flooding of his “second city,” composer Dwight Ashley draws us deeper into murky waters with Ataxia In the liner notes to his third solo release, Ataxia, composer Dwight Ashley divulges his connection with and devastation over the disaster that struck his beloved “second city” of New Orleans during the making of the album. In so doing, he invites the listener to share in an auditory experience that explores both the epic and interpersonal aspects of disaster, disconnection and loss.

While in no wise “about” Katrina (the project was almost halfway complete before the hurricane occurred), with Ataxia, Ashley breaks new neo-expressionist ground in crafting beautifully haunting sonic atmospheres that anticipate a world
undone, in which certainty and stability are distant illusions. Those familiar with Ashley’s first two releases will recognize his characteristic use of inventive post-industrial sound palettes to create massive, almost orchestral compositions that at once seduce and confront, inviting us to probe the darker side of our humanity — and to lift the veil on ourselves.

In a culture characterized by irony, escapism and a misguided tolerance of the intolerable, Ashley’s compositions make a startling statement: not only does emperor have no clothes — his skin is missing, too. With Ataxia, he opens our
eyes with our ears, and demands we stop pretending not to notice.