Electric Company

A Pert Cyclic Omen (American)
by Lex Marburger

Mmmm. Sound landscapes for the planet of our dimensional neighbors. Electric Company doesn’t want to be called “ambient,” and though I agree (Eno created a monster with his “discreet music” project), most people will describe A Pert Cyclic Omen (American) using that word first. However, if they know of Throbbing Gristle or Nocturnal Transmissions, it will soon be obvious that Brad Laner (of Medicine) has created a new slant on industrial music (forget NIN kids, that’s a different beast altogether).

Creations with noise. Expanding on John Cage’s “making the ugly sounds beautiful and the beautiful sounds ugly” theory, they loop and shape waveforms to make a new foundation of music theory – to discover the inherent musical possibility of sound. Over these shifting sands of sonic vibration, more colors are added, giving the songs a form and shape, and a sense of progression and forward movement. Something Music for Airports lacks. A Pert Cyclic Omen is certainly not for everyone. They treat noise as a subtle medium to be worked like fine clay, rather than brutally assaulting the listener as Painkiller and Last Exit do. Not quite as advanced as Laswell’s projects, and a bit harsher than Experimental Audio Research (Sonic Boom), Electric Company has created mood music for calmly painful alien abductions.