Experimental Audio Research

Peter "Sonic Boom" Kember (Spacemen 3, Spectrum) is also protagontist with saxophone player Kevin Martin (God), guitarist Kevin Shields (My Bloody Valentine) and drummer Eddie Provost (AMM), of E.A.R. (Experimental Audio Research).

Mesmerised (Sympathy, 1994) is an evocative, cosmic-ambient experiment within the space of four long suites. DMT Symphony is an electronic poem of drones and soundscapes in free movement that, in its search for visionary and dramatic effects, reminds us of Klaus Schulze's first frescoes. The 26 minutes of Mesmerised 4901 (a deconstructed melody within an almost mantric pulsation ` la Swastika Girls by Fripp and Eno), Guitar Feedback Manipulation (a gloomy, trembling drone a` la Gordon Mumma, generated, as the title implies, by hideous guitar mutations), and California Nocturne (a dense "cluster" of chords imitating the tone of bagpipes) are simple exercises in the analysis of sound. The supergroup's music is a music of loops, painstakingly contructed in the laboratory, and then set in motion like gadgets.

The follow-up Beyond the Pale (Big Cat, 1996), recorded in 1992, achieves even smoother and more abstract results, and places the group beside the more adventurous "macchiaioli" of new-age music. The sinister atmosphere of Beyond the Pale (a spectral raga ripped apart by neurotic guitar riffs) and the sidereal winds of In the Cold Light (that grow in intensity until they resemble a symphony for sirens), two compositions each a quarter of an hour long, would rank among the most spectacular results of Boom's career. The threatening suspense of Dusk and the alien vortices of The Circle Is Blue abandon the metaphysical/spiritual level and instead plumb the neurosis and fears of homo industrialis. Kember's new skills in manipulating electronic sounds push the sound towards a fusion of minimalism and kosmische muzik. On the other hand, the small impressionist frescoes (The Calm Before, The Calm Beyond) bear the mark of Shields.

Kember and Martin replaced Shields with guitarists Scott Riley and Pete Bain, added Eddie Prevost (bowed cymbal) and Tom Prentice (viola) and recorded an album, Phenomena 256 (3rd Stone, 1996), that showed further evolution of the E.A.R. sound towards kosmische muzik's black holes: the ghostly bubbling breezes of Spacestation (nine minutes), from which elf-like voices emerge, the fibrillating watercolors of As The Night Starts Closing In (ten minutes), the pastoral calm of Delta 6, disturbed by the wailing and meowing of saxophone and guitar. Phenomena 256 (14 minutes) achieves the most powerful tension, thanks to a loud and dark beginning and to a wavering pulsation.
Kember and Martin also toy with new techniques. Sub Aqua - Tidal - Lunar (ten minutes) is three compositions in one: a static drone in the left channel, a swirling in the center channel, a fuzz-like distortion in the right channel.
The eerie textures of Space Themes are composed using the letters of John Cage's last name (C, A, G, E) as the notes.
It is a bold work, but it fails to create something that is truly innovative or that truly pushes the envelope.

The Koner Experiment (Revolver, 1997) likely constitutes the most radical result of Peter Kember's, Kevin Martin's, and Eddie Provost's research. Not only does electronica reign supreme, but the album belongs more to Thomas Kroner (and to his collaborator Andy Mellwig) than of the original owners of the brand E.A.R. Kroner is a specialist in artificial rhythms, and this is music about pulsations. 1 functions as a manifesto, demonstrating how to transform industrial music into ambient music. The cadence of 2 is more abrasive, that of 3 almost resembles human breathing, that of 5 toys with the Doppler effect, 7 intones an improbable disco music, 8 flows around New Age, and so on until 10, which degerates into a wave of terrifying force. The method always consists of putting on track a cadence and making it slowly change. Each piece is caressed by subliminal massages of electronica. The album crowns Kroner's progressive simplification of sound.

Millenium Music (Atavistic, 1998) contains three long suites around twenty minutes each that continue and deepen the program of Mesmerised. Kember manages to meld the figure of the avant-guard bugg and the psychedelic freak in the gothic-futurist vision of Delysid (a collage of spectral sounds and cosmic frequency, alien sounds and apocalyptic drones, wailing robots and dissonant violins). Kember even ventures into creative improvisation with Digitana, a surreal symphony of sounds and pauses: like the "concrete" composer Pierre Henry playing with the Art Ensemble of Chicago, the electronic composer Gordan Mumma dialoguing with jazz drummer Don Moye, and with a finale of electronic farts and distortions that sounds like a duet between Morton Subotnik and Karlheinz Stockhausen. The Enigma Code is a cosmo-psychedelic romp in free-jazz version, an amoeba of electronic squiggles that launch slowly towards orbits of distorted hisses accompanied by soft drumming. For all the pretensions of the awkward household experimenter, the album crowns years of research and finds a post shoe-gaze equilibrium.

Data Rape (Spaceage, 1998) contains eight compositions for "circuit bending" created using some audio toys from the 1970s. Like the previous album, it looks more like idea thrown out there that, thanks to the generosity of the record label, found a place on an album.

Pestrepeller (Ochre, 1999) is titled to the band whose album Sonic Boom "borrowed" for his manic exercise of post-processing. Living Sound (Histrionic, 1999) is a 40-minute improvised jam with the band Jessamine.

Live At The Dream Palace (2000) contains two live performances: the 40-minute Modulo 2 and the 20-minute Song For A Seraphim.

Continuining Sonic Boom's progression towards musique concrete, the EP Vibrations (Rocket Girl, 2000) is possibly his most ambitious experiment of sound manipulation.

The progression culminates with Continuum (Space Age, 2002), a monolith of zen-like sonic structures.