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The fourth Hypnos/Foundry release, ACCRETIONS represents a melding of
digital audio and organic inspiration. Mollusk delves into the oceanic
realm with compositions at once experimental and atmospheric. Waves crash,
tides ebb and flow, and the ancient mollusks follow their own paths
through this wonderful collection.
ACCRETIONS, a melding of organic inspiration and digital audio, is the
first CD release from Mollusk, the musical alter ego of Malcolm Bly. Bly
was working in web design at the time, and created the music of Mollusk
entirely through digital means, employing sampling and DSP applications,
as well as experimenting with the process of using the artifacts of MP3-
format compression to create a "low resolution" sound. "It seemed to me
that the medium of the MP3 wanted to be played with, explored for its
own abilities, not simply used as a means to poorly represent higher
To this end Bly incorporated the idea of low resolution audio output
into his compositional approach, so that the final form of these pieces
has, until this release, not been a CD or 16-bit/44.1kHz sound files, but
a stereo MP3 file. Besides creating what Bly refers to as the "Mollusk
sound," working with low kbps rates meant that the resulting MP3s were
smaller than those produced at the more common 128kbps or 192kbps, and
this meant shorter download times. For instance, the 20 minute Ancient
Seas became a meager 4.6MB, instead of the 18MB one might expect.
For the ACCRETIONS compact disc release, Mollusk has created the new track
Barnacle: Archipelago, and remixed/remastered all the compositions to CD
quality audio. The tracks The Sea and The Cry of the Distant Nautilus
retain the low resolution Mollusk sound, but the other pieces have been
recreated in high resolution 44.1 kHz sound.
An adventure into more experimental "digitalism," ACCRETIONS will appeal
to the more adventurous listener who enjoys 21st century musical modes
such as "glitch" and microsound.
"The waves which flow from Mollusk tend to be gentle, if a bit strange; the
Accretions of their abstract-though-thematic soundstreams flow jointly into
an esoteric 8.4 sonic tidepool of deep listening. "
1. the sea [7.36] -MP3 excerpt-
2. argonautica three [5.02]
3. barnacle: archipelago [10.00] (unreleased)
4. evolution of the snail's brain pt. 1 [2.36] -MP3 excerpt-
5. evolution of the snail's brain pt. 2 [4.20]
6. evolution of the snail's brain pt. 3 [5.30]
7. evolution of the snail's brain pt. 4 [5.00]
8. evolution of the snail's brain pt. 5 [2.34]
9. evolution of the snail's brain pt. 6 [4.48]
10. hadal [4.24]
11. barnacle: island [5.06]
12. the cry of the distant nautilus [5.07]