Andrew DuncanSteve Hauschildt
Dissolvi
Ghostly International
★★★★★
Steve Hauschildt may be new to the Ghostly roster, but Dissolvi demonstrates his passion for constructing future music in a way that is amazement. Human deconstruction leads to technological innovation, it’s a concept that mimics society. A take on the Latin cuppio dissolvi (“I wish to be dissolved”) builds both a personal and societal approach to this epistemological marriage between perception and reality.
After the dissolvement of his psychedelic noise band Emeralds, Haushildt undertook a solo effort that pulls apart the fabric of human abstraction. The album was recorded mostly in Chicago, partly in New York, in a windowless studio to eliminate seasonal surroundings and distractions. By stepping outside of himself, these songs came from composed and arranged contributions from friends.
Steve Hauschildt – Alienself
On “Saccade,” a fiber optic bass drum pulsates achromatic beats that lead to lavender-mood melodies. The layers of sound arpeggiate around each other, allowing vocalist Julianna Barwick to move around with freeform thought. Words sound more like ghosts, barely discernible from the notes they emit.
Gabrielle Herbst (aka GABI) lends her vocals to “Syncope,” in such away the operatic tones blend with Hauschildt’s electronic expanse of movement that it builds the illusion of realization. Realizing what exactly leads us back to the uncertain.
Where “Phantax” sounds like something out of U.F. Orb or Polygon Window, “Alienself” is the pinnacle of Hauschildt compositions. Ping-ponging notes off of tones with meditative hues, the song is immaculate in its technology. He creates a landscape of alien terrain inside the machine that is viewed more as mantra. There is a relaxed perceptiveness that compels us to escape from our own selves as much as Hauschildt dissolves man from machine. We can walk away with a sound appreciation for Dissolvi’s creation but we as humans are disassociated from the album’s emotions beyond generalized philosophic melancholia.
As far as technological ambient releases go, this is the most compelling, placing Dissolvi as one of the best electronic albums of 2018.