{"id":24614,"date":"2023-02-12T05:30:44","date_gmt":"2023-02-12T10:30:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/?p=24614"},"modified":"2023-02-11T16:19:51","modified_gmt":"2023-02-11T21:19:51","slug":"album-review-bruce-licher-exploratorium","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/2023\/02\/12\/album-review-bruce-licher-exploratorium\/","title":{"rendered":"Album Review: Bruce Licher &#8212; Exploratorium"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-full wp-image-24615\" src=\"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/12\/licher_exploratorium.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"350\" height=\"275\" srcset=\"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/12\/licher_exploratorium.jpg 350w, http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/12\/licher_exploratorium-300x236.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 350px) 100vw, 350px\" \/>Bruce Licher is guitarist in post-punk band Savage Republic; that L.A.-based group has flown well under the commercial radar. But they came to my attention years ago when I read about the band in Richie Unterberger\u2019s book. Licher\u2019s solo work is even more atmospheric, as exemplified on <i>Exploratorium<\/i>. The three-track collection was originally released in an extremely limited edition on mini CD-r (remember those?) in 2006. And the material itself is even older, having been committed to four-track cassette in 1997.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cPeak\u201d has a sinister yet contemplative character redolent of Tangerine Dream, or Neu! without the <i>motorik<\/i> beat. \u201cGoing Home\u201d has a more cinematic quality, with icy synth textures and glacial yet subtly pulsing beat. \u201cThe Penstemon Field\u201d is hypnotic and reminiscent of Glenn Branca.<\/p>\n<p>This reissue expands the original, nearly doubling its run time with a 26-minute bonus track, \u201cNumber 09.\u201d Clattering, electronic bursts of noise and tape fiddling introduce the epic track. Licher\u2019s method seems to be to set up a sequence and then tweak its character at random intervals (i.e. when the spirit moves him). It\u2019s definitely a <em>musique concr\u00e9te<\/em> piece, as the subtle White Album reference of its title hints. \u201cNumber 09\u201d stands in stark contrast to the original three tracks, but remains a fascinating (if grating) listening experience. Certainly not for all tastes, it\u2019s worthwhile for the adventurous and\/or industrially-inclined.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Bruce Licher is guitarist in post-punk band Savage Republic; that L.A.-based group has flown well under the commercial radar. But they came to my attention years ago when I read [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":24615,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,7,39,40,64,65],"tags":[5038],"class_list":["post-24614","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-ambient","category-avant-garde","category-indie","category-instrumental","category-reissue","category-review","tag-bruce-licher","cat-5-id","cat-7-id","cat-39-id","cat-40-id","cat-64-id","cat-65-id","has_thumb"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24614","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=24614"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24614\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":24907,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24614\/revisions\/24907"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/24615"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24614"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=24614"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=24614"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}