artist: Darren Tate title: Small Worlds format: CDr label: Quiet World (Wales) http://quietworld.homestead.com review: Manuel Pereira

In one of his most recent efforts, british drone alchemist darren tate, brings us a nocturnal mantra of subtle and absorbing minimalism. "small worlds", a CD-R from this year, starts with intensive repetiveness; an aquous and almost tender melody. as we advance on its death-course comes an urge for disconfort as the small beeps start to reclaim their own life. there´s a huge outer-spaced suffocation that settles and starts feeding on the inability to focus anywhere else than on these three long pieces. As it advances, our mental references tend to interfere with each other; they become more and more disconex, yet we´re still hooked on this warm, deadly embrace. This is the sound of all machines gone mad. The record constitues itself as a preamble of catastrophe. an antecipation of storm, with its huge wall of weight drowning the schizophrenic fingerpicking. repetition, again, dissipating over and over under the power of this ultra-downtuned blanket. There is still place for grownth, although there isn´t space for evasion at all. the tiny echoes of voices floating away are still present in its weakness, as if there was at least a chance to communicate under this sea of low frequency. Hypnosis carries on its work.