crou037: Tim Catlin + Jon Mueller: Plates and Wires CD

CROUTON NO.37
Tim Catlin and Jon Mueller
“Plates and Wires”
CD

Australian guitarist Tim Catlin and American percussionist Jon Mueller’s approach to their instruments is based on their shared interest in the vibration of material and the changes in sound that result in modifying those vibrations. Over a year in the making, “Plates and Wires” features a series of different situations involving guitars, gongs, snare drums, and bass drum, and their resonant effect upon one another. The recording of “Plates and Wires” was mastered by James Plotkin (Khanate/Phantomsmasher/Khlyst) and is released in a limited edition of 300 in a 10×10″ package featuring artwork from Milwaukee painter Thomas Kovacich. Kovacich’s practice of dragging paint with devices over large planks of disused furniture creates a visual cohesion with the layers of milky and gritty sounds heard within the recording.

Reviews:

“Australian guitarist Tim Catlin and Milwaukee-based percussionist Jon Mueller have teamed up for this fantastic release on the latter’s Crouton label. Working in different recording settings over the past year, the duo have constructed variously interwoven setups utilizing prepared guitars, gongs, drums and other amplified percussion. No instrument can be played without somehow bringing its peers to life. One reviewer at Aquarius Records in San Francisco aptly described the process behind Plates and Wires as “like a game of Mouse Trap,” with each element seemingly activating the next in an endless harmonic give-and-take. What results is a very organic recording with a dream logic in place, wandering through the speakers in an hour-long musical dérive.” - Seth Watter, Dusted Magazine

“When Catlin and Mueller begin to generate their quiet fluctuations of sustained harmonics and constantly abraded textures, their sounds enjoy an organic intimacy. Each droning sound emerges out of an ambient co-habitation and cross-contamination of psychoacoustic manipulation, resulting from very little (if any) digital tricks.” - Aquarius Records