Kyle Bobby Dunn: "Senium III"

Another double-helping of art installation loveliness from K B Dunn: the intrepid ex-Canadian who ventured due south and settled in downtown Brooklyn. (In fact, the only difference between Dunn and Constable Benton Fraser is he doesn’t have Leslie Nielsen to help him investigate his parents’ shooting.) After submitting his breakthrough earlier this year in the form of a 2CD introduction, Dunn’s jumped ship to the Standard Form imprint and returned with this quick double A-side. No more fleshing out the old material into a make-or-break bid for recognition—this time the strange oscillations get sketched into one twenty-minute pearl, breathing with the artist’s fetish for robust coffees, pungent cheese, porks buns, and unconsciousness. Those New Yorkers know to eat.

Of the two pieces on Rural Routes, it’s the flip, “Senium III,” that’s the sticker. It also doubles as an introduction to Dunn if you can’t hack the 2CD wade: this piece is Chicane on vapours, all slow-strobing drone and repressed ecstasy. Bright echoes slide over each other like some divine kind of planetarium soundtrack, a touch of the bagpipes here and there to suggest highland slopes in the foreground (or maybe Canadian slopes—according to the liner notes, Dunn recorded this after revisiting his birthplace in Obscureville, Alberta). The echoes eventually overlap and sour, sloshing like the tide (or Lake Athabasca) as you float for a full eleven minutes while KBD proves yet again he’s the undefeated champion of audiophiles. It might seem like a slog if you spin it on your car stereo, but if you’ve got headphones and access to a lilo, you’re in luck.