*** Christian Marclay

RECORDS

(Atavistic)

Both in the liner notes and in peer-group scuttlebutt, Marclay's name is being mentioned with hip-hop DJs and their latter-day, theory-driven electronica progeny. But his motivations are a little removed from body-oriented club dance tracks. This is primarily contemplative stuff, wedged firmly in the world of art, where the pieces Marclay works are objects, better suited to the gallery or the performance space than the sound lab. Which doesn't mean this compilation of album-based work from the early '80s isn't a gas to hear, with its nutty, sampled juxtapositions of jazz, pop, classical, and experimental riffs and sounds from disparate recordings captured on a two-track tape. It does not groove and it does not create ambient (or illbient) vistas; on the other hand, its total lack of flow breeds a white-knuckle tension without any resolution, and the experimental enthusiasm is almost palpable.

-- Jonathan Dixon