Daniel Menche does not create albums in as much as he creates atmospheres. For the last two decades, the Portland, OR, musician has built dozens of massive, teeming spans of sound, deliberately sculpting a cacophony of static, hum, and rhythm into objects of inescapable gravity. In the past, his best work-- 2002’s subwoofer rattling Face of Vehemence, for instance, or 2006’s seasick induction Creatures of Cadence-- has tended to be impenetrable from both sides: That is, his strident layers of noise and concussion make hard, instant demands of the listener’s durability. Once you’re in, however, Menche’s work tends to keep you there, waiting for the next subtle shifts within his generally overwhelming musical framework. Menche is a wizard of tone and a master of pacing, toggling expertly between tedium and restlessness, a linked pair that’s something of a holy grail in such long-tone experimental fare.
Another key aspect of Menche’s output is its prolific pace. Indeed, keeping track of his catalogue has often felt like a task best suited for librarians or, better yet, hoarders. To wit, his Bandcamp page offers 49 separate volumes, and that’s only a partial discography. Menche has been working at that frantic pace for the majority of his career, too, issuing several albums, collaborations and contributions with each new calendar. Between 2005 and 2009, he seemed unstoppable, releasing a feverish amount of material that felt ever significant and never tossed-off. During that period, I collected everything he released. Recently, though, Menche’s aesthetic had started to feel a bit tired, at least to me. I’m still not sure if the problem was with Menche or me-- perhaps I’d heard too much too quickly and grown too obsessive, or perhaps he’d actually stalled out. After all, he’d gone deep with visceral bass and high with wrenching noise, fast with industrial wash cycles of percussion and slow with drones that blossomed like orchids. What was left? Last year’s aggressive Guts was good, sure, but it also felt like stylistic mannerism, an irascible body blow from a guy trying to fight his way outside of the cloister of his own construction.
But already in 2013, Menche has released two remarkable records that not only stand alone as magnificent marathon trips but stand apart within his own canon, too. Previously, Menche’s oeuvre might only be described as beautiful from the inside looking in; spend enough time learning his vocabulary and becoming accustomed to the customary din, and the harshness begins to glow. But Marriage of Metals, his first for Editions Mego since Guts, is his most identifiably pretty music to date and one of the best albums of his career.
For recording, Menche entered the studio of the Venerable Showers of Beauty, a Gamelan ensemble that “foster artistic exchanges between Java and the Portland community.” He captured the range of available gongs and metallophones and then routed the recordings through his electronics, shaping the sounds into two tracks. Pieces of liminal wonder, the dual protracted pieces test the boundaries between attack and decay, between consonance and dissonance, between motion and stillness, between disasters and dreams. Tiny melodies bubble from beneath cloaks of distortion and disappear, leaving you to wonder if they were ever there at all. Rhythms pepper the space like fireflies in the dark. Everything about these pieces is intentional, but Menche somehow makes it all feel incidental and instinctive, as if you’ve simply stumbled into the sound of another world-- part Gamelan and part electronic, sure, but mostly alien. Menche’s music has long tended to pull listeners away from reality, suspending time and expectations for vast stretches. Marriage of Metals, however, creates its own reality.
Vilké dovetails more with Menche’s past. On a series of four 19 or 20 minute tracks, he uses tumbles of warped digital percussion and swelling-and-subsiding drones to create harrowing environments where something sinister always seems to lurk just ahead. These are gauntlets of abrasion and anxiety. Taking its name from the Lithuanian vocative noun for female wolf, Menche hints at wildlife mimesis within these 80 minutes, the drums occasionally galloping like lupine paws and the distended tones howling like the wind or the animal itself. Still, Vilké feels soft around the edges, as though the animalistic wrath of similarly structured Menche records has now been augmented by a more balanced and honest view of the world around him. Vilké tempers Menche’s usual approach without dulling it. Perhaps the joys of dog ownership have finally started to moderate Menche’s work, or perhaps he’s finally learning how to let more people in the front door of his atmospheres, even as he’s smartly sealing the exits.
