Earlier this week, Alice O identified the work of Graham Dunning, an artist who creates improvised dance music in Half-Life by changing the game’s audio with clips from 90s rave tracks and pattern CDs. Now, Twitch isn’t identified for being the best music-streaming platform about, so this weekend Dunning launched Panopticon – a moody album of experimental noise organized in Valve’s seminal 1998 shooter.
Even if I’m completely too younger to have ever staggered out of a warehouse lined in glowsticks and good vibes, Black Mesa’s experimental rave slaps fairly laborious. But whereas there are components of efficiency to Dunning’s streams, it’s laborious to pop on a two-hour twitch VOD whereas out for a jog. Released right now, Panopticon rearranges that mess of generative noise right into a extra listenable, deliberately-curated bundle.
(Your mileage might differ as to how “listenable” it truly is. Taste and all.)
To the untrained ear, it’s laborious to seek out Half-Life‘s imprint at first listen. But rest assured, Valve’s ’98 shooter has left a very resonant cascade on Panopticon’s soundscape.
Drumbeats are synced to Gordon Freeman’s footsteps, certain, and the staccato semi-automatic rhythm of pistols, shotguns and crowbar swipes mark a lot of the album’s rhythm. But Half-Life’s soundscape additionally had some distinctive, weird quirks. Anyone who’s spent any time in Black Mesa’s labyrinthine vents will instantly decide up the notably flange-tinted reverb in “Yellow Henge (Radio Occult)”.
If you’re within the course of, Dunning is presently streaming another session over on Twitch. At time of writing, he’s simply burst a very creepy Gargantua earlier than Half-Life’s notorious tram phase – the alien brute chanting “come take a trip to my won-der-land” because it chases him down. Ghastly.
Panopticon is on the market to stream on Bandcamp now. If you’re feeling additional old-school and have a tape participant kicking about, £9 will get you an honest-to-god cassette.
