''Substatic'' is the fourth solo album by

New Zealand New Zealand ( mi, Aotearoa ) is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island () and the South Island ()—and over 700 List of islands of New Zealand, smaller islands. It is the ...

composer

Peter Jefferies Peter Jefferies is a musician from New Zealand. He is known for his involvement with Nocturnal Projections and This Kind of Punishment as well as his extensive solo and collaborative work. History In 1981 Peter and his brother Graeme Jefferie ...

, released on September 29, 1998 through

Emperor Jones Emperor Jones is a small Austin, Texas based independent record label founded in 1995 by Craig Stewart. It has released albums by acts such as Alastair Galbraith, The American Analog Set, Roky Erickson, Thuja, ST37, The Mountain Goats, Stick Me ...

. One of his most musically ambitious and emotionally complex efforts, it marks Jefferies' return to the completely instrumental format he had previously explored on his 1987 album '' At Swim 2 Birds''.

Composition

''Substatic'' is known to be one of Jefferies' most experimental and musically adventurous recordings. The album comprises five pieces of music, including a lengthy seventeen-minute suite titled "Three Movements". The compositions are based around repetitious rhythms created by Jefferies' pianodrum, a combination of a keyboard and the

snare SNARE proteins – " SNAP REceptor" – are a large protein family consisting of at least 24 members in yeasts, more than 60 members in mammalian cells, and some numbers in plants. The primary role of SNARE proteins is to mediate vesicle ...

and

bass drum The bass drum is a large drum that produces a note of low definite or indefinite pitch. The instrument is typically cylindrical, with the drum's diameter much greater than the drum's depth, with a struck head at both ends of the cylinder. T ...

sections of a drum set, and are partially improvised. The use of sampling is prominently used as part of the composition of ''Substatic''. The piece "Index" includes sampled vocals of Jean Smith of

Mecca Normal Mecca (; officially Makkah al-Mukarramah, commonly shortened to Makkah ()) is a city and administrative center of the Mecca Province of Saudi Arabia, and the holiest city in Islam. It is inland from Jeddah on the Red Sea, in a narrow val ...

, taken from a 1995 live performance. "Damage" features audience noise which was recorded by Bruce Russell during a live performance. A digeridoo played by Alicia Aaparros Duran can be heard on the album's final track, "Three Movements".

Reception

Joe Garden of ''

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'' was also enthusiastic in his review of the album, saying that the music covers "a wide breadth of emotions" and is "highly charged, mostly toward the negative end of the emotional spectrum." Ned Raggett of

allmusic AllMusic (previously known as All-Music Guide and AMG) is an American online music database. It catalogs more than three million album entries and 30 million tracks, as well as information on musicians and bands. Initiated in 1991, the dat ...

gave it three out of five stars and called it a "striking, varied album" with "intentionally and beautifully murky production."

Track listing

Personnel

*Anita Galitis-Anker –

gong A gongFrom Indonesian and ms, gong; jv, ꦒꦺꦴꦁ ; zh, c=鑼, p=luó; ja, , dora; km, គង ; th, ฆ้อง ; vi, cồng chiêng; as, কাঁহ is a percussion instrument originating in East Asia and Southeast Asia. Gongs ...

on "Index",

bells Bells may refer to: * Bell, a musical instrument Places * Bells, North Carolina * Bells, Tennessee * Bells, Texas * Bells Beach, Victoria, an internationally famous surf beach in Australia * Bells Corners, Ontario Music * Bells, directly stru ...

on "Damage", flute and

synthesizer A synthesizer (also spelled synthesiser) is an electronic musical instrument that generates audio signals. Synthesizers typically create sounds by generating waveforms through methods including subtractive synthesis, additive synthesis ...

on "Three Movements" *Michael Hill –

production Production may refer to: Economics and business * Production (economics) * Production, the act of manufacturing goods * Production, in the outline of industrial organization, the act of making products (goods and services) * Production as a stati ...

bass guitar The bass guitar, electric bass or simply bass (), is the lowest-pitched member of the string family. It is a plucked string instrument similar in appearance and construction to an electric or an acoustic guitar, but with a longer neck and s ...

on "Index", "Kitty Loop" and "Three Movements",

acoustic guitar An acoustic guitar is a musical instrument in the string family. When a string is plucked its vibration is transmitted from the bridge, resonating throughout the top of the guitar. It is also transmitted to the side and back of the instrument, ...

on "Index" and "Three Movements",

electric guitar An electric guitar is a guitar that requires external amplification in order to be heard at typical performance volumes, unlike a standard acoustic guitar (however combinations of the two - a semi-acoustic guitar and an electric acoustic gu ...

on "Three Movements" *

–

electric piano An electric piano is a musical instrument which produces sounds when a performer presses the keys of a piano-style musical keyboard. Pressing keys causes mechanical hammers to strike metal strings, metal reeds or wire tines, leading to vibrations ...

grand piano The piano is a stringed keyboard instrument in which the strings are struck by wooden hammers that are coated with a softer material (modern hammers are covered with dense wool felt; some early pianos used leather). It is played using a keybo ...

, keyboards,

drums A drum kit (also called a drum set, trap set, or simply drums) is a collection of drums, cymbals, and other auxiliary percussion instruments set up to be played by one person. The player (drummer) typically holds a pair of matching drumsticks ...

, electric guitar, bass guitar

References

{{Authority control 1998 albums Peter Jefferies albums