'Apparatus,' SubtractiveLAD's fourth album, finds Stephen Hummel elaborating upon previous granular motifs. Those familiar with his progression will notice that Hummel's sound has matured and become grounded in an honest and open place. As such musical growth would imply, Apparatus is the album in which Hummel appears to be most comfortable with his ideas and usage of sound. It is this comfort which allows Apparatus to envelop the listener in a profoundly personal way. Lofty classic ambient refrains, shoegaze splendor and muted broken beat trickery are all stylistic fair game. Comparisons can be made to a wide rage of artists such as Ben Frost, Eno, Namlook, and even label mate Bitcrush. As each SubtractieLAD album seems to top the previous, the anticipation is continually building for what is to come from this bright talent in electronic music.

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Using an array of home-brewed synth patches, drum units and effect generators, Canadian ambient/electronic maestro Stephen Hummel has, in the past, shown particular flair for evoking volcanic imagery with his cavernous, organic sound. Continuing an impressive album a year ratio under his SubtractiveLAD guise, much of the works featured on “Apparatus” is interchangeable with previous release “No Man’s Land”. Fine when you are preaching to the converted but, with n5MD’s and Hummel’s reputation growing steadily, it is the less conventional SubLAD tracks that are of more interest here.

Opener “Civil Dusk”, for example, is an immersive affair, with vast vacuums of grainy guitar that powers from a murmur into a full blown roar, as Hummel wears a Tangerine Dream influence on his sleeve. “Spoiled Honey’s” big analogue synth-bass is pure Boards of Canada, but the flourishing percussion is all SubtractiveLAD, nodding to Hummel’s grounding in Jazz and Improv. As does the juggernauting “Decay as a Lifestyle”, a piece featuring a motoring guitar that is saturated in a vat of reverb.

“The Day Away”, though, is rather sublime, initiated by a lonely drone that soon blossoms into an esoteric, sparkling melody, forming much like cirrus clouds above those volcanoes. Unadorned by percussive elements this track is as heavenly as it gets, wrapping you in a Hammock-like cocoon while retaining all the cherubic qualities of a Sigur Ros ambient number. “Becoming Nothing” is the exact negative, brimming with a dark, gaseous hiss with atonal reverb strewn across like debris.

Undeniably the work of SubtractiveLAD, at times you feel as if Hummel is holding something back on us. Then you are hit square on the head with some truly wonderful moments like “The Day Away” or, indeed, “Civil Dusk”. It is a compelling paradox, as he incrementally shifts his sound yet again, purposefully adding to his already considerable repertoire. “Apparatus”, though, has much to offer your sonically serrated ears. textura

Apparatus, Vancouverite Stephen Hummel's fourth subtractiveLAD release, is Epilogue in Waves' natural companion despite its slightly different sonic character. Apparatus sculpts symphonic ambiance by fusing guitars and analog synths fuse into lightning shoegaze streams; in contrast to Epilogue in Waves' focus on natural sounds, Apparatus weaves its instruments into stirring celestial masses. “Decay as a Lifestyle,” for instance, explodes into a fireworks display of shoegaze splendor, while “Alone (With You)” directs its shoegaze persona heavenward. subtractiveLAD does, however, share with Bitcrush an occasional penchant for hymnal atmosphere as exemplified by “Between Us” wherein melodies of church-like stateliness give way to nimble analogue synthesizer and dreamy guitar patterns augmented by live drumming. Hummel's music is also inclined towards melancholy: true to its title, “The Day Away” situates the listener within an enveloping and wistful space that's as transcendent in character as an epic Manual composition. Hummel's uncompromisingly experimental side is showcased too. We find ourselves in Cloudland Canyon territory when the fiercely psychedelic electrical storm of “Your Human Love” appears and flesh-melting guitars and white noise roar for a hot-wired eight minutes, while “Becoming Nothing” ventures into an ominous, even nightmarish drone zone. Throughout the hour-long set, subtractiveLAD's hazy ambiance and fluid textures blossom in ten tracks that are more typically celestial in character than overpoweringly aggressive. cyclic defrost

Vancouver-based electronic producer Stephen Hummel’s preceding 2007 album as SubtractiveLAD ‘No Man’s Land’ showed his music moving even further away from the glitchy IDM-electronic leanings of earlier albums such as ‘Giving Up The Ghost’ and ‘Suture’, towards a more organic, emotionally candid and free-flowing post-rock / shoegaze aesthetic informed perhaps by his background in the jazz-improv. world. As hinted at by last year’s download-only ‘Decay As A Lifestyle’ EP, this fourth SubtractiveLAD album ‘Apparatus’ sees this stylistic shift deepening even further, resulting in a collection that easily contains Hummel’s most mature-sounding and emotionally provocative material to date. Opening track ‘Civil Dusk’ certainly provides a suitably evocative introduction to this expansive 10 track, 62 minute long collection, with an almost disorienting sweep of droning harmonic tones generating a potent atmosphere that feels touched by traces of the Middle East, shortly before hissing textures that suggest a sudden rush of air take things out amidst what sounds like ghostly traces of detuned bowed instrumentation and howling amp feedback. From there, the languid ‘Between Us’ casts a slight nod towards early Eno as liquid sounding analogue synth pads slowly build into a wash of swoops and buzzes, the planktonic burble of distant synth sequences nicely capped off by the addition of reverbed-out live drums, just before the subtle guitar elements that first reared their heads on ‘No Man’s Land’ emerge into full shimmering detail, taking things off on a stirring post-rock trajectory that recalls one of Godspeed You! Black Emperor’s more wide-eyed moments.

By contrast, ‘Decay As A Lifestyle’ sees those same rock elements bleeding straight into the foreground, as crashing reverb-heavy cymbals power their way beneath a psychedelic wash of slow synth arpeggios and majestic-sounding guitar bends that nods as much to seventies psyche/prog as much as it does to the likes of the Thrill Jockey and Kranky labels, while the melancholic ‘Spoiled Honey’ initially suggests a return to the colder, electronics-dominated explorations of Hummel’s earlier work, only for the icily brooding synth pads to slowly peel away as vast, DSP-manipulated live drums, atmospheric drones and serrated guitar feedback take up centre space. ‘Apparatus’ is easily Hummel’s most impressive and emotionally candid sounding album as SubtractiveLAD to date, and a record truly deserving of n5MD’s self-described tag ‘emotional experimental electronica.’ the skinny

Stephen Hummel introduces the fourth album under his subtractiveLAD guise, an impressive feat considering he’s only been working on the project for five years. The Vancouver-based experimental musician’s efforts have definitely paid off. Apparatus is an incredibly pleasing album to listen to from start to finish and should appeal to shoegazers everywhere. With a background steeped in improv jazz and industrial, elements of these can be found in these more ambient works. Album-opener Civil Dusk is a drone of slow brass and feedback, in a good way. Elsewhere the album has hints of Explosions In The Sky in tracks like Decay As A Lifestyle and Spoiled Honey, and Boards of Canada in Civil Dusk - so if that bout of name-dropping didn’t whet your palette, you probably won’t be into it. On a side note, apparently Hummel made the album on software all created by him, so not only is he a good musician but he’s also pretty clever too. evilsponge

Evolution seems to be the order of the day here. Just when you think you have an artist pegged, a half-decent one will sidestep you. If that is the case, subLAD (let's call him subLAD) has performed a profoundly wrong-footing maneuver of Olympic proportions on yours truly. Listening to Apparatus, I feel as though I have been thrown by the world Judo champion. It is a sensation of utter helplessness and defeat and yet there is a certain dignity in losing to an opponent as worthy as this.

Now for the record. I have never claimed any expertise regarding electronic music, ambient, IDM, downtempo, or even post rock. The only "type" of music I always like is good music. When I first heard subLAD, I thought I had done reasonably well in identifying a similarity to Vangelis and particularly the soundtrack work for the film Blade Runner. Whether I was right or wrong about that is up to you, dear reader. What certainly proved to be foolish was to sit back on my hands and think, "job done". Apparatus is nothing like its predecessor. subLAD seems to be moving from cinematic back toward textural, while most of his contemporaries are moving in the opposite direction. Maybe Between Us contains traces of those "Tyrell Corporation fly-by's" that distinguished No Mans Land, but the rest is a smorgasbord of musical treats. We're in Boards of Canada territory, for example, on the luxurious Spoiled Honey. By contrast, Mayfly is rather Robin Guthrie/Yellow6 with its tranquil layering, and The Day Away is very Eno.

subtractiveLAD is clearly meticulous to the point of even designing his own instrumentation. We should all note this, myself not excluded, when drawing the inevitable comparisons we make. Wordless, Apparatus may be, but it has certainly made subtractiveLAD into a distinct voice in electronic music.

Each of the tracks I have mentioned is gorgeous and arguably these represent the meat in the Apparatus sandwich. Either side, we find thick chunks of dense, ominous drone. Speaking personally, this is effective rather than pleasurable. Only the hymnal Fumes can lift the mood as the album reaches its close. Yet I neglected to mention the centerpiece and what for many will surely become the standout track on Apparatus. Decay as a Lifestyle is the epic here and runs through the full repertoire. Blurred MBV-esque guitars frame a signature SubLAD melody. Is it good? Put it this way – I think I just found my brand. sideline

Keeping up his apparent ‘album a year’ philosophy Stephen Hummel releases his fourth album under his solo project moniker of SubtractiveLAD for the critically acclaimed Californian label n5MD. Always intensely personal and steeped in drifting textural atmosphere, Hummel’s music never fails to evoke some sort of emotive reaction. “Apparatus” could be described as ambient, drone, cinematic or melodic at various points during its 10 track, 62-minute duration but it always depicts a sense of intimate significance to its creator, as all of his albums do. Even amongst all of his soul-searching, Hummel finds time for the occasional outburst of energy in the form of the glorious guitar noise of “Decay As A Lifestyle” or the end of “Alone (With You)”. Elsewhere he includes a broken experimental interlude with “Between Us” and a 70’s style analogue synth intro to “Spoiled Honey”. Where his strength has always been however is with the intensely intimate expression in the gentler passages of music, often enhanced by his own guitar playing, that seem to examine the darker melancholy moments of thought and contemplation. Yet, even then, tracks like “The Day Away” and “Alone (With You)” still have a soaring majestic radiance to them brought by Hummel’s layered swathes of droning guitar and synth texture. Amongst the swelling ambience Hummel includes everything from guitar, synths, drums and layered synth/guitar drones to produce a varied, ever evolving and captivating album. There are not many electronic musicians who can pack as much feeling and emotion into a track as Hummel does with “Apparatus”. He just gets better with every album. As with his last four albums, expect his next release to appear around February 14th.

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