It’s always good to hear new music from Birmingham composer James Dooley, aka Formuls. He’s recently put out two releases that are essentially siblings. It’s been a while (too long) since i last wrote about Dooley’s work, but on that occasion i was exploring music that sat in various levels of proximity to steady states, musical processes in which short-term change occurs within long-term behavioural stasis. That proximate relationship to steady statism also makes its presence felt in Dooley’s latest output, a fact vaguely hinted at in the albums’ respective titles, Disorder as a function of time (from Graz to Holycross) and Obsession as a function of time (inertia). The composer calls the former a “parent”, the latter as an “extension”, and its Obsession that most directly embraces steady states as its modus operandi. Dooley’s note describes it as “repeating and reconfiguring a limited amount of musical material until each improvisation reaches a point of inertial absurdity – it sounds the same, yet different”.
It’s amusing to note that Dooley also refers to Obsession as an “EP”; considering its duration is nearly an hour and a half, that surely pushes the definition of “extended” to its limit. But that length feels necessary in terms of serving to demonstrate clearly the nature of the processes at play, which in order properly to be heard and understood – as well as to be able to approach levels of “absurdity” – need to be given plenty of time. And indeed, things do loop and cycle; what goes around comes around, but never the same, skirting the unique ambient liminality of always familiar, always new, which keeps things at the cusp of ignorable and interesting.
Beyond that, the nature of the musical evolution taking place in these seven tracks is not just engrossing but engrossed. There’s the sense of an active musical mind taking an involved, keen interest in their slow, subtle shifts of detail. i can’t speak to Dooley’s actual compositional processes here, and the extent to which he may have employed algorithmic and / or otherwise generative methods to facilitate the evolution process, but it hardly matters. What emerges is a music of paradoxes: active and passive, light yet heavy, cyclical yet linear, propelled yet floating.
Occasionally a track bucks the trend, as in Part 5, where the emphasis on long-term stasis is challenged more strongly. Its low-key brooding tenor and ticking beats become broken up with heavy bass stings and a sudden tilting upwards into high register stuff, turning sparse. By the end, unlike most of the tracks on Obsession, we’re obviously a long way from where we started. Likewise Part 6 where, from an initial place of intricate beat patterns, we end up more and more surrounded by pulseless pitches and yet more of those catalytic bass stings. Obsession is a fascinating listen, and each time i have i’ve been stimulated afresh by that fundamental tension between stasis and change, “the same, yet different”.
It’s interesting to reflect on these impressions in light of the way Dooley describes the other album, Disorder: “the album documents a journey rather than a static moment in time”. Where Obsession played with notions of stasis and linearity, this suggests Disorder might lean more towards the latter. Furthermore, by referring to Disorder as the “parent”, Dooley also indicates it as being more of a source document, in contrast to the remixed and reconfigured pieces on Obsession that sprang from it.
Yet the opener, ‘Welcome to paradise [2022-05-27] (from Graz to UK PLC)’, is an exercise in cycling, relatively gently but with palpable energy coursing through it. Again there’s that sense of engrossed focus, that what’s happening right now is of utmost importance. It’s only in the closing 90 seconds or so that its sense of stability is slightly undermined, though everything remains familiar, held in check. As Disorder continues it considerably expands; where track 1 was under eight minutes, track 2, ‘rickpaulmickcarl [2020-04-16 – 2024-03-17] (four in one) (four of a kind)’ is nearly 11. It exhibits a curious form of momentum that’s somehow fast, slow and non-existent, sometimes all at once. The nature of the circularity is more unusual here, largely due to that equivocal momentum, lessening the sense of behavioural stasis, or at least making it feel more variegated. It’s to Dooley’s credit that this track sounds so cohesive; at any given moment there are usually half a dozen (at least) elements in the texture all moving at different rates, and the fact that they somehow meld into a united whole is impressive. There’s a lovely unexpected moment two-thirds of the way through, when loud whistles emerge (a counterpoint to the bass buzzes on Obsession), possibly causing the shift in pace that follows.
The expansion continues in the final two tracks, which last 13 and 34 minutes respectively. Track 3 (deep breath), ‘fluorescent aell [2022-2023] (Muss es sein? Es muss sein!) / zoetrope [1978 – ] (merry-go-round) / Goodbye pseudo-speedball [2024-03-17] (Become who you are)’, is intensely focused and highly energised, more than anywhere else, locked into a laser-sighted drone. Dooley does this elsewhere, but something that’s particularly effective in this track is its use of mono elements, at the dead centre of the stereo field. Even though they’re an integral part of the whole, they also project with a directness that somewhat sets them apart or at least distinct from (and thereby increases) the breadth of the sonic image. Here, the stasis is more overt, until the centre where everything is transformed and, passing through sequences of metallic surges, some data-like burbling (a nicely unexpected development), and a return of those high intensity whistles – even more catalytic here, like fireworks – the music evolves into an ever more pounding coda where beats and noise frenetically jostle.
This is arguably the album’s high point in terms of activity. The final track, ‘Welcome home [2024-06] (from UK PLC to Holycross)’, fills its half-hour span through a process of defocused expansion. It brings to mind some of Autechre’s lengthier forays into beats-meet-ambient territory (such as ‘e0’, ‘shimripl casual’ and particularly ‘column thirteen’). Of course, Dooley’s default position isn’t similarly rooted in dance idioms, so we’re placed within an altogether less certain musical structure, one where that blurring of stasis and change reaches its zenith. In some ways it sets up what’s to come in Obsession nicely; there are times here when it feels like – despite the continual stream of evidence to the contrary – there’s not that much going on. Yet its paraxodical liminality is absolute: relaxed yet agitated, bristling with energy yet suspended, heading somewhere yet going nowhere. Compelling and fascinating throughout, it ends as it began; maybe, considering its title, it articulates something of the mixed feelings of homecoming after Dooley’s self-described “colourful period as a sojourner”. A tense form of peace.
Released in March, Disorder as a function of time (from Graz to Holycross) and Obsession as a function of time (inertia) are available as downloads from the Formuls Bandcamp site.
