Foxy Digitalis Review

Ralph White & The Horaflora Sound System Resipiscent Two players: White, who plays kalimbas (a thumb piano variant), fiddles, and banjo; and Raub at the wheel of the Horaflora Sound System (prepared speakers and objects plus transducers). It’s unclear if this music was improvised together or assembled from separate recordings. The question isn’t really important because the music is so incredibly neat sounding and nice. There are moments of oddly soothing metallic plinking and patter (“Buzzard and Rattlesnake Share A Meal of Honeycomb”), skeletal violins echoing across pools of mercury (“A Space Between A Chimney and A Swift”), and bike spoke banjo touring arctic and equatorial environments (“Wildflower Face, Insect Eyes”). Technically an electroacoustic album, it never feels like a study on some type of compositional device. It’s just great listening. The interplay is often surprising and textures overlap serendipitously. The song with the droning fiddle verges on the psych folk; especially when entwined with Raub’s sparkling transducer pitches. Inspired stuff. 8/10 -- Mike Pursley (31 March, 2010)