Small Prometheus

Similar to Connected, Robin Fox's 2012 album produced in collaboration with Oren Ambarchi, A Small Prometheus was originally composed as the soundtrack to a dance work. Choreographer Stephanie Lake's production A Small Prometheus is themed around dissipating heat and combustion, and the dancers seem to be convulsing and constantly losing control. Fox's score isn't as chaotic and random-seeming as his excellent 2010 album A Handful of Automation; his work here is more subtle, but very tense, slowly building up hissing drones and out-of-phase throbbing rhythms, and inserting sharp bursts of feedback noise. It never outright explodes, but it does seem to smolder, emitting a thick cloud of toxic fumes. The album's most mind-altering journey is the 11-minute "Antlers," which seems to slowly slide upwards through a rotating tunnel. Elsewhere, the album feels like a haunted walk through a dark, windy rainstorm on a particularly chilling night. ~ Paul Simpson