Soil (30th Anniversary Edition)

"Issued on vinyl for the first time, Terre Thaemlitz's 1995 follow-up to the iconic ambient house blueprint 'Tranquilizer' is just as staggeringly prophetic as its predecessor, seeding notions of radical queer ambient music with a finely encrypted tapestry of symbolism and synaesthetic lushness.

Terre Thaemlitz was already suspicious of the "ambient" tag way back in 1995 when 'Soil' first dropped. When he signed with Greenwich Village's Instinct imprint, the label assumed that Thaemlitz would be "another Moby," churning out marketable horizontal tomes like 1993's popular 'Ambient'. We all know exactly how all that worked out: after compiling a series of wild-eyed 12" ideas into 'Tranquilizer' in 1994 and inadvertently foreshadowing dubstep, phonk and cloud rap, Thaemlitz started work on 'Soil', using computer synthesis rather than MIDI synths and samplers for the first time. 

Although the label warned that any "overtly political or sexual texts might upset US and European listeners”, the album was written as a singular project and followed Thaemlitz's political notions. If ambient music was supposed to be avoidable, inevitable and horizontal, Thaemlitz countered contemporary trends set by more "marketable" artists like Woob and The Orb with grotesque juxtapositions, curdling the expected placid tones with harsh, lived-in realities and a tension that hangs thick in the air.  The cover art is subversive too, a "pink triangle" (as reclaimed by LGBT communities and HIV/AIDS victims, after use in WWII concentration camps) and an insert photo of a used condom in woodlands - which was actually a diorama created in Terre’s living room (they want you to decide if the semen is real or fake) - and now presented as part of a huge foldout double gatefold.

"I'm still most influenced by '70s jazz-funk and disco," Thaemlitz told Massive in 1997, talking about the Instinct releases. "I think this is because they are both populist and leftist signifiers, which is the inherent contradiction I associate with the Contemporary Ambient movement." 'Soil' feels like an attempt to attack that contradiction head-on in the most visible way - especially as it was released as the seventh instalment in a series called "Instinct Ambient". On 'Elevatorium', groggy muzak-like synths gust around bucolic environmental recordings - the kind of Irv Tiebel-style birdsong and running water that's become commonplace in recent years - but Thaemlitz alters the mood with rowdy mariachi band sounds, blurring everything into dubby half-speed sub-heavy vibrations. A soft, almost inaudible solo piano recital takes the focus shortly afterwards, as Thaemlitz appears to lampoon the canon by sensualising its sexless, coffee table sprawl. Indeed, when we hit 'Yer Ass Is Grass', the "ambient" signifiers have all but evaporated, replaced by laptop-mangled, time-stretched gurgles and concrète edits that hit like gunshots. A voice recounts the story of the notorious "Texas Tower Sniper" Charles Whitman, one of America's earliest mass shooters, and compares it with that of Lee Harvey Oswald. "Those individuals showed what one motivated marine and his rifle can do." 

Thaemlitz explores just intoned subcontinental tunings on ’Subjective Loss, Day 83’, and shifts the dial into darker realms on the almost KLF-meets-Burroughs tape cut-ups of a drill sergeant, leading to a breathtaking symphonic denouement, and heart-in-mouth suspense of ‘Trucker’. The slowness and timbral shivers of ‘Aging Core, Aging Periphery’ can be heard as a sort of prescient precursor to Sarah Davachi or Kara-Lis Coverdale’s quiet subversions, and the melancholic hush of ‘Cycles’, and its arc from tongue tip thizz to gauzy juxtaposition of unsettling domestic violence sets up themes that would be explored more rigorously on ‘Deproduction’ (2017), utilising undulating bass tones before the final third where Thaemlitz threads through a woman's voice recounting her experience of domestic violence. It's a sobering conclusion, the last word "gun" echoing thru the psyche long after 'Soil' has ended.

From the semiotic dualities of the title - ‘Soil’ as cum stain (referring to the act of bonking and music production), a side-eye at ambient’s spiritualist connotations as “Mother Earth”, and the literal french translation of Terre - to the artwork, and the music’s ability to soothe and unsettle simultaneously, this gesamtkunstwerk of an album remains an inspirational, multi-dimensional triumph and utterly fascinating for its perceptive short-circuiting of generic distinctions and conventions. Arguably, it’s never been more relevant than right now.

please remember that we support Terre and Comatonse Recordings' efforts to keep projects offline, minor, and acting queerly. When purchasing this item, we ask you to refrain from uploading and indiscriminate sharing in any form. <3 "

- Boomkat