Date: July 17th 2008

Artist: Sans Serif
Title: Tones for LaMonte
Label: Hypnos Secret Sounds (Ltd CDR)



2008. Sans Serif is an alter ego of Forrest Fang, the talented multi-instrumentalist and composer whose most recent solo album Gongland was released on Projekt in 2000. He has also collaborated with Carl Weingarten on the album Invisibility released on The Foundry, as well as contributing instrumentally to the works of other artists such as Robert Rich.

Unlike the more traditionally structured and "musical" work Fang releases under his own name, the Sans Serif project is focused on minimalism. This project in particular is a tribute to the influential minimalist composer LaMonte Young, whose work was known for the use of long, sustained tones and alternate tunings. Of this project, Forrest Fang says:

"I like to think of this as a fairly organic release that was inspired by the harmonic drones of La Monte Young. In works like Young's Second Dream of the High-Tension Line Stepdown Transformer, there is an underlying tension between stasis and movement that I find very appealing; it suggests to me a horizontal music that is constantly shifting its position in aural space. I wanted the pieces of this project to reflect both movement and stillness within the same sonic space. I also thought the music should have more of a "live" feel, so I limited the layering of sounds to things that I could do in real time. I thought that a more simplified approach would also better reflect the nature of the project, which was to focus on basic fundamentals of sound, such as harmonics and timbre. The pieces are based on sonic fragments (some are abstract sounds, others fragments of unreleased pieces) that have been altered and processed through different sets of harmonic filters."

Hypnos is pleased to release Tones for LaMonte, a recording that bridges the two, related worlds of avant-garde classical influence, and modern ambient drone.

Track listing, with mp3 sample clips:
1. Alpha mp3
2. Omega mp3
3. Gamma mp3
4. Delta mp3
5. Theta mp3
6. (infinity) mp3


Purchase for $11.99 on Hypnos Online Store