Search - K. Leimer :: Closed System Potentials

Originally recorded in 1979 and released in 1980, Closed System Potentials was in the first wave of experimental electronic indie releases of its day. It was the first full-length album released by Kerry Leimer and his Palace of Lights label. Recorded in a home studio on Teac quarter-track machines, the music draws from tightly and inter-related influences that include work by Cluster, Fripp & Eno, Harmonia and Neu! Combining loop and non-loop elements, Closed System Potentials is considered an idiosyncratic and definitive example of early ambient music. Digitally remastered release of the 1980 vinyl. "For us poor little Frenchmen, used to consuming United States' pop and rock under all its forms (see the display window of your usual record shop), it's incredible to realize that over there in America, lost in the great plains of the New World (my effect misfired, K. Leimer lives in Seattle, on the West Coast!), there exists a slightly whimsical musician who derives a crazy pleasure in creating his very beautiful pieces, all alone surrounded by his keyboards. More than the usual devices of the ordinary French or German glider, Leimer uses prepared tapes, magnetic loops and a piano which he has taken the care to treat beforehand, as he says, in the Eno manner. K. Leimer knows what he wants, he works in a very precise area within the confines of ambient music and so-called 'event' music. He adapts his instruments to this context and, by techniques, perfects entirely beautiful mini-symphonies. Several adjectives come to mind to describe his most beautiful recordings: Field! Characteristics, The Random in Nature, or Four pages from an Unfinished Novel, ethereal, sensual, extraordinary, subtle, adventurous, elegant, fascinating, seductive captivating. I leave it to you to continue the list." ? Pascal Bussey