Jazzy electronica of small sounds
author: Jussi Piekkala
The music of Saul Stokes is very much about the fascination of little details and otherwise neglected sounds that make up for the musical material.
It is like when you occasionally stay really late at the office and you start noticing the hum and huff and knirks and ticks in the modern environment. Let these little sounds evolve into a moving pattern and you have the foundation for the music of Saul Stokes.
In "Vast" (2006), Saul Stokes' eighth album, he presents his palette of small sounds in a framework of more structured compositions. Here his jazzy and relaxed sides are more dominant. This makes "Vast" a very enjoyable, perhaps more accessible, album that I can recommend as an entry point for all listeners.
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smooth, gorgeous
author: Tim Thompson
Wow. The sounds and melodies/rhythms on this album are incredibly laid-back and as smooth as butter, yet still interesting and consistently evolving. Fantastically good.
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Saul's work is an exemplary fusion of experimentalism and electronica.
author: Chuck Van Zyl
The music of Saul Stokes seems to have two centers. The first accommodates the current ideas of tonal and rhythmic organization while the other freely seeks original timbres outside conventional sonant hierarchies. On his previous several releases, Stokes has navigated the paradox of using technology to express a wide range of human feelings quite well. Vast (62'10") is Stokes' most accessible work so far and strongly forges ahead on paths parallel to both mainstream and experimental music. The seven tracks are intermittently lazy, loose and open yet elsewhere demonstrate a knowing affectivity in their tight arrangement and harmonic contrast. Stokes ushers the concept of musical indeterminacy down to the level of circuit design. His hand-built, self-designed tone generators often produce sonically unexpected but esthetically welcomed results. The drifting oscillators, distorting filters and general irregularity inherent in his homemade devices produce a range of chaotic characteristics honed out of commercially manufactured keyboard synthesizers. As high-concept as this may seem, Stokes manages to infuse a sense of wonder into his compositions. Be it in dreamy melodic figures, expanding harmonic progressions or basal body beats, the music of Saul Stokes speaks the electronic infinite word. His work is an exemplary fusion of experimentalism and electronica.
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