k. leimer | permissions

This new album is a bit different than his previous works, as it seems to be some kind of collaborative work with Taylor Deupree. This is ambient music, as that is what Leimer has been concerning himself with for close to thirty years now, but it seems that Leimer has now a stronger interest in using the computer to manipulate field recordings. The glitchy sounds, the moving small textures pitches and sound colors, making up a long, fine album. All these small differences in these textures, slow moving and bouncing making small, evolving mechanisms, living organisms and all such microscopic references. An excellent CD of classic ambient music with modern means. – Vital Weekly

Permissions is somewhat of a collaboration with Taylor Deupree, given that the 12k head is credited with “additional voices, post-production, edit, mix, and mastering.” The detail isn't insignificant, either, as Permissions largely collapses whatever stylistic differences might normally separate 12k and Palace of Lights recordings. Arranged into concise song-like structures, the material exemplifies the concentration on fluttering micro-sound textures, electro-acoustic sounds (acoustic guitar plucks, electric guitar shadings, processed piano, bowed strings, percussion), and field recordings that's shared by the two creators and often captured on a typical 12k release. Listed sans titles on the CD cover as simply Permissions 01-16, the settings function like snapshots that cumulatively provide an in-depth portrait of Leimer's range. The mood is generally laid-back, meditative, and explorative (mysterioso in the piano-heavy sixth), but the elements drawn upon are not only pastoral in nature as industrial sounds surface, too, as part of the overall sound design. Despite their brevity, the pieces are often striking, such as the fourteenth, which gracefully augments a series of percussion accents with a rising ambient wave, and the sixteenth, which finds minute guitar plucks resonating against a crackling mass. Permissions offers a compelling document of Leimer's artistry. - Textura