ALPHABETA by BABEL

Music composed using the notes that spell the titles of the individual pieces.

"Jakob Rehlinger (a.k.a. Moonwood and proprietor of Arachnidiscs) has to be one of the most ambitious and prolific conceptual composers in Canada today. Alphabeta, his third release of 2012 and second under the Babel moniker, is an experiment in translating musical notation to words to actual music. By creating a sort of musical Boggle, he, for example, finds a path for the notes A, C, D, E, G to spell C-A-G-E-D, and following that staff, produces a spiritual tribute to the composer. The liner notes include brief biographies of all 17 (!) pieces, written in a charmingly self-conscious tone, where he worries abut whether he is just chasing a gimmick, praises the creative stimulus of working under such strict constraints, and namedrops some artists who lent inspiration to the album’s post-rock sound (Cage, Swans, Rhys Chatham, Tortoise, etc). Alphabeta is impressive not only because Rehlinger succeeds in his experiment, but by clocking in at just under an hour with every piece feeling fully realized, the sheer epic scope is a dizzying triumph onto itself." ~ Weird Canada

1999-2017. Percussive ambience, electro-acoustics, and extended technique guitar drones by Jakob Rehlinger.