seht - Application antarctica download form
Celebrate/Psi/Phenomenon CD, 2005
"Brrrrr, it's gettin cold in here... don't fall asleep 'cause you may never wake up. Like its namesake, Antarctica... comes on like a vast cathedral of suspended ice-prongs dripping out action at a pace roughly comparable to the formation of a glacier. Nature's fractured architecture pixelated and amplified through the green luminescence of night vision goggles... almost TOO beautiful to be real? My esteemed friends, this falls well inside the parameters of 'effortless' and, not to make too fine a point of it, makes even the most vogue-ish dronesters look pretty silly indeed. A zenith of sensual, hypothermic dream-states. File under 'Near Death'."
- C/Psi/P press-release
What they said...
"Application antarctica download form on C/Psi/P might be the most essential minimalist drone release this year."
- Brad Rose, Foxy Digitalis blog
"Another classic slab of dark dreamy drone from Stephen Clover aka Seht. The title definitely hints at what you'll find on this here disc: a slow moving glacial drone, icy and crystalline, throbbing and reverberating, shifting and swirling, barely there but somehow totally and gorgeously suffocating. Lush layers of sound, piled atop one another, as we watch each layer slowly merge with the one beneath it, sonic tendrils surreptitiously exploring the layers around it, until all the layers are inexorably linked, a slowly squirming intertangled mass, dreamy and hypnotic, but haunting and foreboding as well. The second track threw us for a loop though, when a seemingly out of place shuffling drum beat kicked in, all dubbed out and effected, which at first seemed totally distracting, but quickly drew us in with its propulsive throb, and the whole thing quickly becomes some sort of gorgeously alien krautrock. Really cool."
"Primitive electronic drone/pop/industrial form from Stephen Clover, who hand-crafts spectral forms onto archaic drum-machines and tactile blats of electricity."
"Antartica is an album as suitably glacial and bloodless a piece of music as the title deserves: the dronescapes on this have a subtle slightly uneasy majesty and slow-shifting shape."
- Apex-online 'Boa Melody Bar' website
"New Zealand's seht (AKA Stephen Clover) is one of the most underappreciated artists from the region. Over the course of numerous releases, he's shown how simplicity can often be the most mind-expanding drug around. On this recent CD from Campbell Kneale's Celebrate Psi-Phenomenon imprint, Clover uses his talents to explore the glacial regions of ambient music. Application antarctica download form teases the listener by initially convincing you that this is music that exists in the background, but after a few minutes you will find it completely infecting every part of your body.
Application antarctica download form follows in the footsteps of Eno's Music For Airports. However, if the intention here is for seht to be played in the background, Clover has failed. With it's haunting surface tones, one can't help but be drawn into the album's haze. seht's music is truly subliminal.
From the opening hum of "Skin" to the trance-like finality of "Antarctica download," the entire album works to ease you down into the boiling water. Well, almost. Where Clover shows his real mastery is on the second track, "Phone Order." At first it seems out of place with it's breakbeat-style drum loops. It's a total glitched-out affair. But somehow, in the scheme of the entire album it works. Application antarctica download form pretends to play out some perfected sequence, but "Phone Order" acts as a kink in the chain. It adds an element of chaos to the overall austerity of the rest of the album.
However, the three-part "Despoiler" piece is what makes this record great. This three-part suite is simple and effective. The first part bounces off the inside of your skull like a ping-pong ball moving at lightspeed. It's hypnotic and sets the mood and pace perfectly for the final two parts. Clover weaves a web of music here that is truly subliminal. Part two progresses and slows things down, keeping the hum in a low frequency range. It pulsates like a glowing orb, empty of empty of everything but the purest essence of matter. It is the bare essentials, aurally defined. By the time the third, and shortest, piece of the trilogy comes in, a rattling disturbance is visible. This is the sound of distraction. Clover is trying to keep the meditative tones in context by allowing something ancillary into the mix. There is so much happening below the surface in the space of 14 minutes that is "Despoiler," that it's daunting and overwhelming. But it defines this album.
seht continues to impress on this outing, which is the perfect complement to his other recent CD-R on the same imprint (Communion longplayer). Through all of Stephen Clover's musical journeys, one thing remains constant: that is that there is something cerebral, some attempt to find deeper meaning in the tones of the earth. This is the best piece of ambient music I've heard in a while. Recommended."
- Brad Rose, Foxy Digitalis
"Ambient music comes in many different shapes and forms. New Zealander seht's [aka Stephen Clover] foray into the spectrum Application antarctica download form is a calming experience. It doesn't matter how this record was made or what instrumentation was used [or not used for that matter]. What counts is the final effect. Drones are very much present in every single bit of the 50 minute recording. Thick pulsating drones turn into delicate little hums that then in turn become even more faint. Atmosphere throughout is very luscious. Though the humming is rather delicate, after a few minutes, intensity in your ears grows to such proportions; you start to hear things that aren't really there. I think they call that an audio illusion or something of the sort. It's amazing to listen to these audio forms and follow their paths on their lonely journey towards their ultimate grave. Even when lazy beats arrive on 'Phone Order', the mood is very still and unchanging. Then we come to the name of the record. I wonder if Antarctica is as chilly as these wondrous drones. There is a certain set of music that I listen to when falling asleep. With ease, I'm adding this record to that collection. Dreams were made for this release."
- Tom Sekowski, GazEta
"New Zealand Stephen Clover proposes on this album of the floating, at the same time stationary beaches and moving, as extracted from continuums without beginning nor end. The music, made up of electronic loops, tablecloths and held sounds, car-discusses, is maintained on its own energy. No the trace of human voice, strictly linear musical structures which progress in not-Cartesian plans. Seht avoids the speeches for the benefit of an enveloping sound with which the listener can start, in one moment of loneliness resonant and alleviating, a dumb relation. Application antarctica download form is an album which naturally finds its place in a current very developed at the occidentalized end of the world; the New Zealand labels Corpus Hermeticum, Siltbreeze and Celebrate Psi Phenomenon publish artists who strip the diagrams of the rock'n'roll to keep only the bones of them, a phantom music whose desolation reveals some questions and feelings that the entertainment in general occults."
- Jean-Grégoire Muller, la Médiathèque
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