Buzzle

Product Reviews:

Tim Story's newest, astonishing compilation of sonic portraits, Buzzle, is unique, complex, soothing, envigorating, and perfectly constructed. It is a mix of downtempo beats and lounge-inspired etherea fleshed out with intriguing electronic treatments. Story has opened the big bag of sounds and pulled out some new, unusual and perfectly effective elements that give Buzzle its incredible depth and character.

"Rota" starts the ride by combining a slick groove and striding bass line with a guitar riff that feels like it was lifted straight from a 60's spy movie. Beneath it all is a fuzz-tinged foundation of densely layered sound and percussion. Story's bass playing takes center stage on many of the tracks here, and it's a joy to listen to.

The CD moves into "prelude to biting," a slow, meditative conjunction leading to "decelerate or fasten," which moves back into the lounge feel with a jazzy beat laced around a contemplative melody on cello and piano as smooth as cold silk. "monkey builderizer," aside from having a very cool title, is an indescribable melange of processed sounds wrapped around a funky bass walk. a quiet mantra invoking you to "be a monkey builderizer" slides in like hypnotic suggestion. on "pol teesh" an upbeat, infectious synth melody bops along over electronic bedrock that swells and crackles beneath it. The pace slows with "otherize" and the elegantly moody "dust bale hole," where Story's piano work again takes center stage over film-noir drum brushes, fretless bass accents and subtle electronic punctuation. The bass-driven palate cleanser "cafe kaputt" ushers listeners into the melancholy jazz feel of "the woman singing," a beautiful track that glides on piano and hand percussion. "albacranky" is another brief, elegantly simple bridge, crossing over to the slow groove of "you are patient," where acoustic guitar eases to the forefront, adding texture and grace.

Story then takes "Something Happened Here" from his collaboration with Hans-Joaquim Roedelius, Lunz, and remixes it by blending in the Buzzle sound palette. Electro-buzzes and hard drums dance around the easy piano melody.
And then there's my personal favorite: "yeh!" where thick, grim and fuzzy synth chords shift and slide across a nonsenical-sounding song belted out with pure innocence by daughter Anna Story (with an assist from a bit of sound manipulation), each repetition tagged with a hearty "yeh!" and helped along with more of dad's superb bass work. It's wildly engaging.

Having dissected Buzzle track by track, let me cap this review by saying that I can't stop listening to it. Individually, each song is incredible, full of depth and richness. Together, they are a perfectly constructed suite of eminently listenable music and a seamless, engaging journey. Simply the best CD I've heard in quite some time.
Buzzle is a Hypnagogue Gotta-Get CD!
– John Shanahan, The Hypnagogue

There's something always alluring and compelling about music that is at once recognizable and at the same time spurns typical forms. Buzzle, a Tim Story project, offers that a glimpse at just such unself-conscious and highly self-confident hybridization. Beautifully languorous, moody, smoky and lush instrumental musics here slip into the ambient, then away to moments of jazzy-bluesy stretches that recall The Cinematic Orchestra and then off again to those oddly assembled then disassembled little settling spots of the fully formed and formless so expertly teased into existence by Brian Eno – once and only once – on the first installment of his Music for Films.

These 14 pieces all possess that combination of gleaming surface, a physically convincing soundstage and the most lovely inner detail. As only one instance, a 'cello passage played by Martha Reikow draws your attention to exactly where it seems it should be when still another what? – string trio? – plays in and out of the gaps, remote and rightly suggesting that other stuff, important stuff, is happening too. Just elsewhere. This sharp but still roving focus is accomplished by Story's compositional skill, one that must be shaped by a frank and open interest in much more than any one aspect of expression. Aided by the percussion work of Louie Simon and Scott Wilkinson – here recalling the remarkably live sound and fluid style of Luke Flowers – and Tom Caulfield's orchestra, Anna and Cara Story's vox and, to top out the ensemble, Hans-Joachim Roedelius' piano contribution on "something happened here (remix)".

Buzzle is a perfect and intriguing union of the electronic and acoustic. Without close study it would be difficult to even vaguely determine just how a particular shimmer of decay came into being: some treated 'cello tails or some virtual synth, or some DAW-originated cross-pollinated jitter. After all, it's a CD of music that lives in the details. And there at least 100,000 or so to consider. – Kerry Leimer, Sea of Tranquility