Jashiin - Music With Missing Parts

 Released: May 19

Music With Missing Parts functions as a sort of homage to the past times of the internet in which people would record short synthesizer demos and post them on various audio and video sharing sites, specifically so others could listen to the sounds if they were considering purchasing one. Istanbul-based electronic composer Jashiin took this idea and spread it out across an entire album comprised of mostly quite short compositions utilizing various synths. The result is a rather spanning album that feels much like a generalized collection of ideas held together by a slight sense of incompleteness, like there is something these that supposed to be there but it will never be quite clear what it was or if it is even truly missing. 

The album itself covers a wide range of concepts and subgenres over twenty-five tracks. There’s some that lean heavily into the a drone ambient and cinematic angle like the imminently haunting “Still Life With A Skull” or the minimalistic and deep “The Hollow Boom of Time.” The latter of these being a rumbling and low frequency work that feels barely perceptible at times with muted booms and a faint airy quality taking up some middle space. But for every deep drone, there’s a piece like “Thoughts Like Clouds…” featuring some upfront and rather beautiful analog synths that play out a darkly-tinged melody or the soft blizzard tones of “My Window Contains Peaks with a Thousand Years of Ice.”

Because each track represents a usually short idea, there is kind of a tendency for the album to feel like it’s a bit disjointed or a random. However, even with the wide variety contained on the album, it manages to keep a cohesive atmosphere makes each track sound like it belongs, even if it represents a departure from what was just heard prior. It’s usually not easy to make a large set of mental tangents sound like the being together, but such a tasks is pulled oFf rather well on this particular album.