Generators comprises two live interpretations of the work Keith Fullerton Whitman released in 2010 as the studio LP Generator. These are both “live recordings” in every sense of the term; indeed, at the start of the album, the careful listener will hear a chair leg scraping across the venue’s floor and the oddly comforting sound of someone coughing. In this way, Generators reminds me of Expo 70’s late 2011 live album Inaudible Bicoastal Trajectories, which opened with distant humming drones backing the noises of a typical bar at night: people chatting, glasses and plates clanging against each other, a cash register. In both cases, the amorphous and perhaps faceless work on display is framed by a very human context. There are thus two audiences: the people in the crowd at the time of recording, and the listener at home. Much like Shakespeare’s trademark play-within-a-play trope, on Generators the audience members witnessing the performance first-hand are unwittingly putting on their own kind of performance. For an artist so concerned with the relationship between electronic noise and human experience, such a live album seems like a natural progression.
At the same time, it’s not like Generators is dominated by the chattering of the inebriated masses; Whitman’s knob-turning remains the focus here. The first performance seems smoother and more delicate than the second, less concerned with texture and more with creating an engaging and accessible experience for all audiences. Indeed, “High Zero Generator” (the second performance) is harsher than both its preceding track as well as anything from the burbling, bubbly Generator album. I hear structural parallels between Generators and 2006’s Lisbon; both releases begin with all-encompassing drones like black holes before devolving into a sort of controlled-chaos stew of synthy beeps and whirrs. Still, even at his least melodic, Whitman retains a sense of musicality that makes these albums such rewarding listens.
I don’t have much to say about Generators itself. I mean, I’m not going to sit here and critique the perception of Whitman’s live shows that this album offers; nor am I going to say that this is as transgressive or even interesting as other recent works of his, namely “Disingenuity” b/w “Disingenuousness” (also from 2010). If you’re a fan of Whitman’s music then you ought to at least give this half-hour album a chance; if not, I doubt that anything here will gain your favor. As it stands, Generators seems best taken in the context of his broader aesthetic aims. Whitman cares a lot about the way we perceive sound, noise, music, and all decaying digital permutations thereof. With this release, the difference is that you get the pleasure of hearing both the artist himself at work as well as a preexisting audience already perceiving his noise.
