‘The Ruined Map’, the first album by duo Technical Drawings is certainly not your average experimental recording, and despite one half of the duo operating synthesizers and electronic instrumentation, it’s not your regular electro set either. Much of the album’s other-worldliness stems from the use of prepared piano, pioneered John Cage. By inserting a range of miscellaneous objects and otherwise ‘modifying’ the instrument, the piano produces a range of sounds, many of a percussive nature, and none of which really resemble those associated with a piano.
As such, ‘The Ruined Map’ is a very percussion-orientated album, the eight tracks incorporating styles and sounds that span avant-garde disco to hypermanic steel drum orchestra. There are points when the relentlessly colliding rhythms and counter-rhythms got beyond being merely disorientating and prove to be all just a bit too much, as is the case with ‘Underwater’ and ‘Skullfloor’. But then there are others when everything comes together perfectly and builds a rare rhythmic intensity that’s simultaneously bewildering and exhilarating, as on ‘Interminable Spectral Mountains’ and ‘Issue Project Redux’.
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It may be that some listeners simply can’t get beyond the obstacle of the experimental principles behind ‘The Ruined Map’, while others may appreciate the principal but be less taken by the practice. It’s not an ‘easy’ album, but it is interesting, both experimentally and sonically, and for that, it’s worthy of respect.
Technical Drawings Online
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