John Wiese, Dramatic Accessories (side A)

John Wiese has made countless albums, both solo and in collaborations, for over a decade, but 2008's Dramatic Accessories is the only one which I'm familiar with.  On it, Wiese uses a fairly narrow compositional palette of noise and scraping sounds.  The closest comparison to his sound selections would be Hugh Davies, as they appear to be acoustic sounds that are more amplified than processed.  Where Davies performs these scrapes in rapid succession to create dense layering, Wiese relies here on a sparser approach.  He also, in at least one place clearly manipulates panning, in a way that would be hard to achieve acoustically — as this panned sound repeats, I assume some looping or copying was also exploited.  Wiese's compositions feel more free than purposeful, with little evidence of internal logic or differentiation between tracks.  He does create wide dynamic variation, as quiet scrapes alternate with loud ones in a somewhat purposeful fashion.  The fidelity of Dramatic Accessories is thick and midrange-y, and it's hard to tell if this is purposeful, or where in the chain the limitation was introduced.  It's pressed on a slightly odd slab of vinyl, with edges that have corners at the top and bottom, instead of a more triangular peak in the center.  Dramatic Accessories is beautifully and memorably packaged in a thick piece of folded paper that seems to be screened, in multiple colors, on the outside, and printed on a glossy texture on the inside.