ROBERTS, DEAN - Moth Park: Soundtracks To Utopia

"A release from New Zealand's Dean Roberts, whose previous projects included the now defunct Thela (2 full length CDs on Ecstatic Peace) and the White Winged Moth. This new work for solo electric guitar and atmosphere has been released under the name Moth Park, as the debut release on Dean's new label, Formacentric Disk. Incorporating drone, sound-sculpture and a post-AMM sense of air-piercing magnitude, this marks Dean's most fully realized insight into the world of hovering space/sound yet. A classic of contemporary emotional minimalism in a league of it's own. "His musical activities came into appearance in 1994 while studying with Philip Dadson (Scratch Orchestra/From Scratch) at the University of Auckland. During this period he began developing his work primarily with the electric guitar employing preparations and extended techniques.The facility of this meta-language is prevalent through a back catalog of obscure and not-so releases spanning some 7 albums, a guitar style that dominated his solo project White Winged Moth and the dissolved Thela, a band that he lead and composed for from '93 to '96. This new album is made up of solo guitar improvisations from 1997 recorded in crystalline fidelity by Travis Hefferen.The album is a concise and definitive exploration into the harmonically fluorescent electric guitar style developed on previous recordings. Within the form of 4 soundtrack pieces, this dense and colorful work narrates 45 minutes of intricacy, control, and displays a uniquely modernist approach to an instrument killed and brought back to life. This album shares an ethos and alignment to developmental work of instrument de-constructivists on the Frith/Reichel/Mark Hewins/Remko Scha axis,though a pragmatic approach gives way,and is balanced by an underlying narrative thread." -- Phillip Browne." - Formacentric Disk (New Zealand).