AMN Reviews: Matthew Mercer – Sub​/​Super (2023; Dragon’s Eye Recordings)

This album caught me unaware. While I have heard one other Matthew Mercer recording, that was a while ago and I cannot recall any specifics (one of the downsides of spending many waking hours listening to music). Regardless, Sub/Super consists of two long, subtlety shimmering and rolling drones – one 36 minutes, the other 14.

According to Mercer, they were “crafted from heavily-manipulated recordings of live performances.” The emphasis here is on manipulation, as Mercer employs loops, delays, and other effects to process sounds into a form that resembles layers of long-held chords. On Sublimation, the longer track, there are often 3-4 distinct voices that can be made out. They come in and out of focus, blending both dissonance and consonance while growing in dynamism. The result is hypnogogic and more than a little disconcerting.

Superliminal is more introspective and is based on processed guitar improvisations. If anything, it is even more oscillatory but less monolithic than its predecessor. Its quieter passages are likely drawn from sequences of single guitar chords that are stretched and touched up with reverb and loops. This gives the track an electroacoustic feel while it maintains a lively pace.