Alog
Catch That Totem
(1998-2005)

MELEKTRONIKK CD

BY MATTHEW INGRAM

Norwegian post-musical knob twiddlers Alog specialise in decomposing
collages of samples, instruments like guitar, double bass, tabla, trumpet,
harmonium, flutes and Fender Rhodes electric piano via intricate hard disk
editing. Theirs may be a method particular to them, but broadly their
tactics are instantly recognisable to th New Music listener. Even their
trump card, bespoke MIDI software for OSX called The Method, is a familiar
concoctions of the high-end boffins of electronica, who might pleasingly be
compared to the instrument builders of yore.
Catch That Totem, a compilation of previously unreleased and hard-to-find
material, amounts to Alog´s fourth release after the acclaimed Red Shift
Swing, Duck-Rabbit and Miniatures CDs. It´s a quitly lovely collection of
organic machine music, conjuring images of beign bio-robotic organisms
unconsciously beavering away at mysterious tasks. Alog´s intensly detailed
canvases have a deliriously over-studied quality that conveys to the
listener an almost Victorian density of intention. The duo are known to
spend up to three years working on an individual track. Their music is
closely comparable in manic spirit and in its particular propulsiveness to
This Heat circa "Health and Efficiency", albeit without that duo´s vicious
cut and thrust. Conversely, to avoid missing detail in background Ambient
sloop, you need to turn up the volume high.
Alog apparantly pride themselves on their accessibility and why should their
obsession with micro-texture preclude it? Much of Catch That Totem is
sweetly poppy, the rotations of "Beklager, Nicholas" melodically generous,
the title track a tunefully lush reverse-skank, and "Song Sung Inwardly" a
gentle piece of soegaze-era indie snowstorm. Catch That Totem may not be the
most uniquely iconic example of the glitch genre, but it´s nevertheless
rewarding.