Seattle’s Novak has cranked out another great release, commissioned as a soundtrack to a dance project. The dancers are blindfolded, so maybe you should cover your eyes when you listen to the tracks here. If you do, you’ll start to feel as though you’re bumping around in a room filled with empty ammunition canisters, before you get blast off on the back of an ICBM à la Slim Pickens in Dr. Strangelove. Both sensations are better than you might imagine. So don’t be afraid.
– The Wire
Seattle-based sound designer/dismantler Yann Novak has been all over the style map via his label, everything noise-infused, drone-derived, and glitch-glutted—he’s one of many little-known and underappreciated American ‘scape-artists. Too bad, too, as Dragon’s Eye has been releasing some sterling documentation on the CDR format as of late. Take these two cool lit’l 3”s. On Dark Room, Novak does a sort of reductionist riff on Merzbow, softening the blast wave with discernible atmospheres and a teeming detail of well-coordinated tings, tangs and thrums; I’d be happy if its 20-minute length were easily doubled. Up Close gets quite personal, eschewing the brash for the blippy; these alien symphonies are practically jaunty, extraterrestrial juju for Martian jukeboxes. Interstellar, and, well, quite stellar.
– e/i Magazine

Yann Novak

Menu Recordings

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Dark Room, 2006

— 3 in. CD-R

Label: Dragon's Eye Recordings →
Catalog No.: de2708
Duration: 20 min 20 sec
Edition: 40 (out of print)

Track Listing

Unwind / Make Out pt.1
Edges / Make Out pt.2

Reviews

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Commissioned for the dance/installation Dark Room by Crispin Spaeth Dance Group at Western Bridge as part of the exhibition Crash. Pause. Rewind. The Score to Dark Room is a virtuoso exploration of darkness, surveillance, and war technology. Released on its opening night, Dark Room was only available at the performances and online.