Data in the Details

Born and raised in Ft. Collins, Colorado, Matthew Sage established himself a formidable player in the greater experimental scene as a producer of utterly monumental works of processed ambient music using anything and everything at his disposal as M. Sage, along a bevy of other pseudonyms. From guitar, pedals, cello, field recordings, and severe but tasteful post-production, sound takes shape in a carefully focused but altogether organic way. Sage's acts of grandeur don't simply fall back on piling on just any noise or sound. Tones are sifted out of the ether naturally, separating themselves with the ease of an inherent belonging, best heard earlier this year on the sprawling A Singular Continent LP, wherein Sage created sonic worlds, fabricating entire geographies, geologies, latitudes, and histories. With Data in the Details, Sage turns the focus inward, pulling from a series of deeply personal scenes in his final two months in Ft. Collins ranging doing data entry and moving high-end furniture into high-end mountain homes. The resulting two tracks process the experiences in disparate but inextricably linked ways. A-side's "Data in the Details (heads up extended edit)" routes an amorphous and elusive trail of textured ambient modes. Glitched and muted melodies fold on top of one another in ways only Vladislav Delay previously mastered, while frigid patterns of sound ice over similar to Fennesz's alluringly processed tones. B-side's "Data in the Details (mover isuzu dub edit)" repurposes the ample washes of the original track into more rhythmic and minimal acid-dub. Calling to mind Porter Ricks' sub-aquatic dubbiness, traversing Jan Jelinek's mutant, kraut techno, Sage revels in a sort of muted throb that flows through the entire side with both nothing and everything to lose.