Pole - Steingarten

Pole

Steingarten

(2007, ~Scape)

7.0/10.0

This is the most blatantly experimental and intriguing of the long form minimalist electronic albums that have been released this year. Unlike The Field and Pantha du Prince (sorry to keep coupling the three) Pole is not wholly interested in entrancing and comforting. On Steingarten Pole manages to make hoards of texture heavy effects that come off as organic…well, organic if you are an alien. The songs moaning bleats and skittering blips feel like an odd arrangement of interplanetary zoo exhibits whose handlers slowly reveal themselves to be as peculiar as the creatures they're exhibiting. Pole's blatant disregard for acute melody and their search for the accessibility of odd almost aligns them with electronic saboteurs Excepter or late Black Dice. Even with such comparisons Steingarten shows easily distinguished traces of the school of mainstream electronica from which it was forged. Steingarten isn’t going to be for everyone (and that is just in relation to those with electronic sympathies) but it scores just enough to be wholly worth the experience for anyone who develops the slightest interest for Pole's musings.

-Mr. Thistle

Pole on Myspace