The ever-working Will Yates, mostly otherwise known as Memotone, reactivates his O.G. Jigg side gig and Earth Memory imprint for this CD collection of the soundtrack work he's made over the past five years for the Black Tor projects various 16mil films. What we know to be the best of Yates' work holds true here once again - the guy has an incredible ear for sound and composition, able to turn his hand to almost any kind of musical idea or application. As with Memotone, there's long been a cinematic quality to Yates' output, though it's a very particular type of film in mind here - the sounds favour the miniature, the seemingly incidental, the clandestine and the implied notion that lies just outside the line of vision. Think Focus Group, Luc Ferrari, Radiophonic Workshop or the kind of minimalism-inspired outsider composer that might have been associated with Les Disques du Crepuscule (Richard Jobson, Wim Mertens, Andrew Poppy), where the dramatic arc isn't so much represented as pressed to the synapses in unusual figures, jolts and drones. I imagine the films these are connected to are a marvel, which really is all you can ask of a soundtrack. Even free from that context, you're once again left with the impression of how uniquely talented Yates is.
FFO: Radiophonic Workshop, Focus Group, Andrew Poppy, Luc Ferrari
