NICOLAS COLLINS: “DEVIL’S MUSIC.” Trace Elements TE...

NICOLAS COLLINS: “DEVIL’S MUSIC.” Trace Elements TE 1013. Collins’ work follows the trend in recent music in which a composer-performer sits at a console of electronic gadgets and mixes, manipulates and transforms different sounds into an improvisatorial musical composition--a genre which loses some of its spontaneity when recorded. Formed from electronically altered music, disc-jockey voices and static recorded directly off of a radio as Collins switches from one station to the other, “Devil’s Music” consists of dancelike rhythms and nonsense texts sounding together like a quasi-voodoo ritual. The texture remains thick throughout and shades of contrast from one point to the other are subtle. Several electronic processes are used but the most relentless and obvious is a cliched Max Headroom stutter.