Review Summary: Forever experimenting.
There aren’t many producers who’ve traversed the electronic landscape quite as extensively as Dedekind Cut. In his former life as Lee Bannon, his breakout
Never Mind the Darkness Of It was a cloudy, trap-infused offering, while the next year’s
Alternate/Endings saw a shift to a techno heavy sound with generous helpings of jungle thrown in. 2015’s
Pattern of Excel marked an even more drastic shift for Mr. Bannon as he attempted his Brian Eno impersonation by way of long, meandering ambient compositions which he occasionally peppered with sharp synthy overtones. While all three of these albums differed sharply in compositional style and instrumentation, they all shared a similar moody atmosphere and certain intellectualism in their experimentation that defined them for better or for worse. It’s now 2017, and Lee Bannon has sworn off the “mainstream”, changed his moniker to Dedekind Cut and continued to experiment with ambient music. Dedekind Cut bills himself as “a modern approach to noise, new age and ambient music,” and as ambitious as this sounds,
The Expanding Domain doesn’t completely mislead. While most ambient albums send the listener down a tranquil stream of steady tones, never keen on interrupting any sort of chill vibe,
The Expanding Domain sees Dedekind Cut taking a more active role in composing his ambient soundscapes. Tinges of industrial, drone, and even a random breakbeat section in “Fear in reverse 2” are woven throughout
The Expanding Domain’s runtime, resulting in a product infinitely more engaging, if not a tad pompous than its peers.
Despite the assortment of samples and sounds,
The Expanding Domain is still very much an ambient record at its core. Every eerie drone and every metallic clank buds and blooms from an underlying dark atmosphere Dedekind Cut has been cultivating since his reinvention. The experimental nature of the man’s music also remains and remains a major draw in
The Expanding Domain. After the intro “Cold Bloom” sets the tone and mood of the EP, “Lil Puffy Coat” and “Fear in reverse 2” showcases Dedekind Cut’s tight control over his sound, juxtaposing the drone-laden starkness of “Lil Puffy Coat” with the pumping energy (and aforementioned breakbeat section) that makes up “Fear in reverse 2” that never gives the impression of being directionless despite the inherent nature of the music itself. Dedekind Cut does allow his music to breathe on the last two songs, releasing his grip on the reigns long enough to lull the listener to fall into the dreamlike lull ambient music is so good providing. This is especially true on the closer “Das Expanded, Untitled Riff”. Dedekind Cut conspicuously omits the drone and industrial overtones in favor of more traditional, airy synths that retain a hint of record’s pervading soft static, resulting in a poignant conclusion to the EP as the sound fades into nothing. Dedekind Cut has been nothing if not exploratory when it comes to his brand of electronic music and
The Expanding Domain delivers on the bill of a modern approach to ambient music. The decision to retain control over the compositions, guiding the listener through its music rather than merely releasing the listener into its music ensures that
The Expanding Domain is a gripping experience for his audience, not a background experience. Shades of the intellectualism linger, and an element of “getting it” is needed to appreciate what Dedekind Cut is trying to do. But underneath the spectacle of swearing off the mainstream and alias changes, Fred Warmsley is just sharing himself with all of us.
