Filterbeds - Mutualism

Filterbeds instantly absorbing debut lands with the terrible kicker that one of its members, the multi-talented producer and programmer Jim Whelan, who served time in many other notable projects and as a live member of 23 Skidoo, passed away quite surprisingly just a few months or so before its release. Beyond the obvious tragedy itself, there's the additional disappointment of seeing the wings clipped of a potentially great new act. As Filterbeds, Whelan formed a trio with Natalie Williams and Mark Courtney (both formerly of Leyden Jars and Oyl), joining to make a series of ghostly improvised electronics that now seem especially eerie given the circumstances of their release. Edited down from hours of recorded material, the sounds the trio make spiral and drone in classic time-dilated fashion, mostly minimalist assemblages that seem to locate themselves in the dystopian hinterland of Wire-adjacnet activity (think Dome at their most abstracted, Cupol, Gilbert/Lewis) and the 'dirty' (post-industrial) ambience of O Yuki Conjugate's Primitive collection. As Mutualism becomes a little more agitated in its closing section, I'm also partially reminded of both Mosquitoes and that recent great Germ Lattice debut, the sounds of three people falling over together in agreed, intuitive disharmony. Unfairly cut short Filterbeds might be, but the record stands as a compelling testement to its creators. Edition of 200.