BArTc – Insubstantial As Ghosts (Album – ICR)
Genre/Influences: Experimental, Ambient, Industrial.
Format: Digital, CD.
Background/Info: This is the debut album of London based Experimental, Electronic solo-project BArTc, which is driven by Jason Barton. The name of the project is taken from the chemical elements Boron, Argon and Technetium, but is also a wink to Hungarian composer Béla Bartók.
Content: The work is the perfect offspring between Industrial-, Ambient- and Experimental music. The songs are driven by constant, repetitive loops, which are comparable to the noise of a rotor. Buzzing sound waves invite the listeners to enter a mysterious universe. You sometimes will notice a kind of fragmented vocals while a few tracks are driven by a rather slow cadence.
+ + + : If you’re into Electronic minimalism resulting in an explicit Experimental result, this is an album, which will definitely appeal for you. The sound formula is rather simple, definitely repetitive, but interesting and sometimes fascinating. “The Isotopes Of Yttrium” is a really great cut; it’s a little bit more elaborated and especially the slow rhythm injects something extra to the track.
– – – : The repetitive sound formula becomes rapidly predictable, but this project has something particular and it all sounds like there’s more potential inside than what came out.
Conclusion: BArTc stands for an accessible format of Experimental music.
Best songs: “The Isotopes Of Yttrium”, “Malleus Incuss tapes”, “Francium”.
Rate: 7.
Artist: www.ohm2223.com
Label: www.icrdistribution.com
About BArTc
BArTc is the London-based experimental electronic and audiovisual project of Jason Barton. The name is built from the symbols for three chemical elements, Boron, Argon and Technetium, and nods to both the Hungarian composer Béla Bartók and Barton’s own surname.
Barton has cited the instrumental electronic records in his father’s collection by Tangerine Dream, Vangelis and Jean-Michel Jarre as a starting point, followed in his teens by Coil, Einstürzende Neubauten, Chris & Cosey and Skinny Puppy, and later by Cluster, the musique concrète of Pierre Schaeffer and Pierre Henry, and the BBC Radiophonic Workshop. He names sound recordist and Cabaret Voltaire co-founder Chris Watson as a key influence.
After several years of collecting synthesisers and recording, Barton started the project Less Than One to make accompanying videos, which led to commissions from Daniel Avery and Alessandro Cortini. Side-Line covered the debut and its first track “Malleus Incuss Tapes” in July 2021, and reported in December 2022 that BArTc would issue the 7-track EP “Ghosts”.
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