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REVIEWS:

Trouser Press:
Joseph Lisciandro is the sinewy spine of Arkitekchur, a New York / Philadelphia guitar project that erects handsome edifices of gently echoing string pling, adds oblique spoken samples and then sheathes the whole thing in stirring visual political comment. The group's opening salvo, a two-track (one-minute and 20-minutes) EP, is more experimental than successful, a tentative (if occasionally dramatic) collage of guitar, looped effects and voices that evinces too little compositional form to seem deliberate.
While not drastically different in conception, the subsequent album is far more ambitious and musical, lifting off gently from the long-ago lands of Glenn Branca and Robert Fripp to achieve something quite marvelous. In ridiculously named tracks that vary from snippets to elongated tableaux, Lisciandro (with a couple of one-track-each contributors) floats a pointillist cloud of hypnotic guitar sound that occasionally unleashes punishing hailstones of dissonance and aggression. From the dreamy wavelike tolling of bells ("In Rancoqueaux Woods") to the ugly drone of machinery ("How to Pray Using the Mysteries of Light Theme") to the simple urgency of time, Arkitekchur adapts the clichéd sound of a traditional rock implement to create a distinctively voiced soundtrack to the early 21st century.

Popmatters:
Oh, how indie electronica of Arkitekchur (the Brooklyn-based Joseph Lisciandro, and others) to record and distribute their intriguing EP, Of Solids, Climate and Homes on CD-R (available on the label's website, www.tbtmo.com). Perhaps this is just as well, as the album will be that much more precious to those who own it. Or something. It truly is a shame that this EP is not sold in every Sam Goody or Coconuts Music across America, because this is truly unique music worthy of a listen and quite rewarding for those who will take the time to listen carefully. The two-track EP is comprised of one short opening track of pulsing glitch-tronica ("Yourself In") and the title track, a 20-minute epic masterpiece of unusual power and subtlety. Moving slowly and amorphously throughout the track, different sounds appear and disappear in a haze, leaving an indelible impression before the sound fades into the distance. Certain identifiable noises can be picked out of the aural mélange -- a train can be heard making its way through a fog of white noise and static; a woman speaks into a telephone, trapped in a short loop of repeated hellos; strummed upright bass, guitars and what sounds like a chugging engine make their way through the mire of sound. And, briefly at least, what sounds like a muted synth lingers oh-so-delicately with a gentle lilt that dissipates before other elements eventually build the intensity to a clattering climax. What's so incredibly appealing about this lengthy number is the uncertainty and mystery lurking beneath the many analog and digital sounds. At times, the music fades into near-nothingness, at others, a whole host of noises combine to create a warm, fuzzy, and dreamy atmosphere. This song is very much alive-constantly moving, forever changing, enticingly real, and utterly magnetic.

Phila City Paper: (Disc Quick)
What it is: Abstract electronic/acoustic sound pastiche from Brooklyn’s Joseph Lisciandro and pals.
What it sounds like: Orchestrated background noise woven into an oddly swelling, compelling whole.
The skinny: If you’ve seen Dancer in the Dark, your everyday sounds bubble with music. This is more textural than rhythmic, but akin.

FAC193 zine:
This EP consists of two tracks. The first is a rather short bit clocking in at just over a minute in length. The second and title track is a twenty minute long masterpiece. It’s very difficult to tell you what this is, exactly. The song itself is built on a series of events, both musical and non-musical, fed through a near-endless delay. Percussive elements, a voice on a telephone, and countless other things both identifiable and unidentifiable lurk around within. Surprisingly, something of a dynamic exists here and just when things might take you over the top it veers into a different direction. It’s a hypnotic, slightly eerie listen—and quite a revolution for the ears.

Erasing Clouds:
Arkitekchur's Of Solids, Climate and Homes is mostly the title track, 20 minutes of pure atmosphere. It starts with what sounds like a train going by, or is that some sort of machinery? Then there's birds…or, wait, maybe it's squeaking from any machine? Arkitekchur's music is based on aural ambiguity, on the question mark. Throughout the track sounds enter, slowly reveal themselves to us and then leave, to be replaced by others, like we're slowly making our way through a house. After a few minutes, some "conventional" instruments--guitars strumming--enter, followed by the voices of people answering phones. But as soon as the voices start they get stuck. A woman answers a phone and then gets stuck in repetition; a man does the same and gets stuck too. Are we stuck as well? It feels like we've entered a netherworld between homes, some invisible space in the air between two houses. It's both pretty and scary, comfortable and extremely uncomfortable. Then as the track proceeds, it gets louder, more intense, as if every sound that's come before is rushing into our space. It proceeds like this for a while until everything disappears, leaving only a record scratching, or is that a car trying to start? Noises give way to voices, voices to silence, and so on until the end. Arkitekchur works with places and their spirits, all the while keeping you guessing.

TRIC zine:
This 22-minute cd-r is minimal noise mixed with looped telephone messages and delayed guitar. The noise isn't totally splattered like drone, and holds some tempo, but all elements put together, this is definitely enough to irk your senses. Don't let the cd-r part fool you, either. That just means it was a low-pressing. The quality of the layout is better than most, with heavy paper and slightly raised images, and the cd is still screened.

Splendid:
When I was younger, and subsisted mostly on commercial radio and Chef Boyardee, I decided that music would likely continue on its path toward chaos, rhythm would be abolished, and sound would permanently fuse with art, creating lavish -- and, I assumed at that time, awful -- spectacles of noise and lunacy. Electronic music didn't exist then in the same way it did now, though we had all heard rumors of Kraftwerk, and rave culture was a generational leap away. As time passed, I discovered that my expectations had, to some extent, been met. Long, swirling soundscape-style pieces did exist, although they weren't limited to the electronic world. Godspeed You Black Emperor, for example, who later became one of my most cherished discoveries, blur the lines of mechanical art, traditional instrumentation and song structure without relying heavily on machines, like some of their contemporaries. One such contemporary is Arkitekchur, the Brooklyn-based project responsible for Of Solids, Climate and Homes. The EP is primarily a vehicle for the twenty-minute noise epic of the same name, which kicks in after a very short intro called "Yourself in". Whereas GYBE! utilizes mostly "real" instruments and minimal electronics, Arkitekchur explores the opposite end of the spectrum, employing guitars only as occasional accompaniment to their extensive sound manipulations and electroacoustic samplings. By the time "Of Solids, Climate and Homes" reaches its midpoint, you won't entirely sure if anyone is still at the wheel. The tune spins wildly out of control, mixing instruments (probably sampled) and recorded telephone conversations with endless vistas of billowing synthetic sound. And just when the track reaches the point of being overwhelming, it subsides. More instrumentation builds, primarily what sounds like very high basses or very low guitars, creating an ominous feeling that something very important is coming. Unfortunately, instead of concluding an extremely interesting and enjoyable piece of layered, climactic sound with a swift blow to the eardrums, Arkitekchur allow the piece to basically fade out; its halfway point begins the downhill slope. Perhaps the group was going for a gentle finale, but after building an effectively ominous, foreboding theme of muted conversation and frantic imagery, they end the tune with a dial tone and -- horribly -- a click. You've been hung up on. It's a daring way to end the EP, and many listeners will find it a hollow conclusion at best, but it certainly leaves you wanting more.