It seems that Will Wiesenfeld, the guy behind Geotic (or more plainly, earthly) likes to categorize things, including the music he makes. He makes music under two monikers - Baths and Geotic. The first one he uses for something he likes to call “active listening” and the second one, used to come up with his newest, called “Abysma”, he uses for “passive listening”. Since we’re talking electronic music, I presume the first is of a more beat nature, and the second, shall we say, more ambient.
Or is it? Is he trying to deceive us a bit here? A bit, I guess. Because it is an ambient album in a way, but with beats. And voices, here and there. Good beats and voices at that. And electronics, of course. At some moments, Geotic on this album reminds of Four Met’s best moments (“Nav”). Here creates something you can call beat soundscapes or soundscapes with beats, “Billionth Remnant” being a prime example with its hushed sampled voices and keyboards. What you also get with “Abysma” is a sense of variation, something a lot of ambient or beat music albums have a problem with.
Usually they tend to be “too ambient” (of course, if that is not what you are exclusively looking for), numbing you to sleep, or their beats tend to be too repetitive, which is great if you are in a dancing crowd in a club. There you don’t need an album. And Wiesenfeld’s concept here is obviously to come up with something that you can listen to yourself (or in a group) and enjoy as an album, a musical unit to itself. And he does make a success of it. Like a good alchemist, he mixes enough parts of both, beat and ambient so you can’t strictly define the category, no matter how much he would like you to.
Maybe that is where the trick lies, and where Wiesenfeld is trying to trip us up, telling us to stop categorizing everything and just listen (or dance and listen). And you should, these are good beat soundscapes, shall we say.
