We Are Everyone in the Room

Two improvising laptop trios, Stilluppsteypa hailing from Iceland and Chicago's TV Pow, met for the first time in the fall of 2000 and embarked on a week-long tour, captured in part on this recording. As in most successful examples of this genre, the musicians mesh into a whole wherein individual accomplishments are impossible to quantify. The range of sounds and depth of detail produced by this sextet are remarkable, from the quietest clicks and rattles to deeply sonorous hums and ratchetings, all serving to mold a palpable sound field ripe for contemplation. Certain tracks, like "International Starving Artists," have an almost soundtrack-like feel (one imagines it as accompaniment for a film by Tarkovsky), creating a striking sense of place and stasis as well as foreboding. Listeners wondering what can be achieved with "mere" laptop computers would be well advised to hear recordings like this one, where not only is the sonic landscape vast but the expressiveness and creativity dwarf that of many an avant-garde album on "traditional" instruments. Highly recommended.