Yann Novak

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• Labelmeister Novak is something of an enigma; he plopped into the “scene” out of nowhere, keeping the underground DIY ethic alive via the label’s post-generational heritage. Mystery or no mystery, the man’s contributions to our little-ceded corner of the electronic playroom is notable for its versatility and idea-ological actualization; treading beyond the installation or the studio, he’s become a fulcrum for his metropolis’ avant-garde. Working the room achieves a plethora of meanings during his 40-minute set culled from last year’s Decibel festival. Lost in euphoric reverie, the artist becomes signifier and signifiee—what begins as regenerative torrents of white noise intrudes upon the space, shifting time, toying with what is imagined and truly heard. A drone, yes, but when the halfway point hits, the phasic pulses that arise out of the murk joins the pieces of the puzzle together in a brilliant display of improvisatory mixing. Eliminating audience ambience hardly diminishes the effect of Meadowsweet, where Novaks tugs and pulls on the elasticity of the music at his leisure. Piggybacking the haunted audio that can only be found deep in the chassis of an RCA radio to a series of cautious atmospheres, Novak teases out faint “rhythmic” ephemera that waft onto the soundstage like escaping argon gas. Serene except for the nagging sense of tension limning the curtains of chiming software feedback, “Before the Storm” and both parts of “A Long Goodbye” paint images of machines purging their angst in solitary, their weeping the stuff of soaring electrostatic and defibrillated fuzz—superb.
  – e/i Magazine

• As the news of the world worsens (as it reliably does), one yearns for psychic consolation, for mental balm. One of the most effective means to those ends is through minimalist music (no, really). Granted, it’s tough to achieve inner peace when tools like Rove, Rumsfeld, Robertson, Cheney, Bush, and their media apologists stalk your consciousness, but some producers are up to the challenge presented by our misleaders. Two who dwell in Seattle—Son of Rose and Yann Novak—achieve the desired effect with admirable economy. Both laptop prodigies have been featured before in Data Breaker; they’re back in the column now to mark the simultaneous release of their sophomore albums for Novak’s burgeoning Dragon’s Eye label, whose output’s been receiving strong reviews in UK experimental-music bellwether The Wire. The follow-up to Novak’s Fade Dis/Appearances, Meadowsweet replicates the profound tranquility of planes roaring from a great distance (call it “internal combustion ambience”). Novak’s acutely aerated drones and exultant lulls attain a sublime state of bliss without descending into new-age kitsch. Within these transporting drones there fizz pointillist melodies that charm all the more for being submerged in digital cloudstuff. This may sound like hyperbole, but I’m sincere: Novak is on course to reach the sanctified level of Brian Eno’s finest ambient works from the ’70s and ’80s. Meadowsweet—which was created to honor the memory of Novak’s recently deceased mother—is destined to be an enduring collection of emotionally resonant microsound.
  – The Stranger