White hole states. ÁKOS GARAI
(White_line 2012)

State 1: The shards formed by the cracking of the acrylic ice on top of a synthetic lake in some unknown alien environment scrape their abrasive edges together. The air (or whatever gas is prevalent in this atmosphere) is still and cold. This is the start of a journey either outward or inward. It depends really where you start from and which way you direct your gaze.

State 2: The elemental otherness transforms into its unprocessed alter ego as State 1 bleeds into State 2. Real solid objects creak and groan as they are pushed and pulled against each other. Jostling like furniture in an earthquake, the feeling is claustrophobic and menacing in equal parts.

State 3: Orchestra of typewriters. Bells. Motors. Mechanical. Cash register. Jangling. Cogs. Springs. Clatter rhythms. Retro office. Date stamp. Card punch. Timers. Clockwork.

State 4: Purely electronic, formal and beautiful. Background pulses, deep, comforting throbs and a high plucked string. Stimulating different parts of the brain simultaneously. Everything in its place and all in proportion. A walk through a zen garden made of disembodied tones and sound points.

State 5: We move into an unsettling landscape of high pitched feedback rising and falling around us. There is a narrow path, it is difficult to keep to and sometimes there is a danger of being engulfed and rendered unable to continue. It is austere and forbidding. We make the passage through.

State 6: Some solace. Gently undulating waves on a deep, wine-dark sea. A forlorn broken beacon sends out morse code messages over the moonlit surface and out into the night. We have no points of reference and we must pass through this state unaided by maps or GPS.

State 7: Redemption, our ultimate goal, is the all enveloping warmth of electric nirvana. Like the gentle heat radiating from the back of an analogue TV, we are bathed in a

blanket of deep red light. A familiarity emanates from softly glowing valves. Having traversed seven states we can rest.

Each track of Akos Garai’s release on WHITE_LINE EDITIONS is a world in itself with its own rules and parameters. Built from simple building blocks, each one is constructed from a pared down blueprint. They are best listened to in order. In this sense there is a departure and a destination. A setting out and an arrival.

The states could be geographical, metaphysical or simply auditory. The lack of information quite rightly allows a listener to travel by his or her own means. To choose a context and a time of departure. It is uncharted territory though, and it took me several listens to come to terms with the sometimes quite disconcerting differences between the tracks.

I intend to make the journey again in the future. I know it will always yield new vistas.

-Chris Whitehead

Ákos Garai website
White_line website 

Chris Whitehead

Sound artist.