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  • Tiny little white ones (like handfuls of salt)

    MITEK03

    Artist: Andreas Berthling

    Label: Mitek

    The title of Andreas Berthling's Tiny Little White Ones (Like Handfuls of Salt) (Mitek) is a pretty darned accurate description of the sound contained within, a high-pitched flutter and crackle like the underwater sound of sand tumbling across the seafloor. Working at the level of the bit, Sweden's Berthling scrapes together microsecond-long ticks and pings into quietly powerful shapes and rhythms. It's not all music for microscopes; the maddeningly short "Silverlake" threads its flickering pinholes with a gossamer hum, recalling Fennesz' or Pita's tenderer moments. Berthling gets extra points for knowing when to quit: none of the 11 tracks here are over four and a half minutes long, a rare demonstration of restraint. Double extra points for using track titles that don't resemble filenames (e.g. names like "Small Things Colliding" and "Silvertone" instead of, say, ".brxxygg" and "t_kkx"). And super-duper triple extra points for the oddly-but-undoubtedly-meaningfully-titled "Philip's Bumper Sticker." (If only I had a car, I'd know what he was talking about.) A fantastic release that deserves to be heard above the hum of all things micro. Philippe Sherburne, needledops [US]