Track Listing

1. Pallid
2. Distance
3. Return
4. Song23
5. Invert
6. Chrometaphor
7. Scratch
8. Displacement
9. The 8th Winter
10. Re/Module
11. Atomontage
12. Done Processing

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #349286 in Music
• Released on: 2003-10-02
• Number of discs: 1

Album Description
formless, gridlock’s fourth album and first full-length for hymen, is as far away from the acrid, slight world of plug-ins and software music as you could possibly get, which is rather ironic considering that gridlock’s mike wells and mike cadoo live in the would-be epicenter of laptop music, san francisco. full of lush melodies and luscious analog warmth, formless shuns the pretense of flaccid software acrobatics, instead summoning from the depths of human emotion a musical epic that touches upon the gravest recesses of memory.

Customer Reviews

Epic.
Easily in the top 5 electronic albums I've ever heard (regardless of genre). Scratch that: Top 3. It is an hour long clear, concise, and powerful musical statement delivered to the listener with evangelical conviction. Wells and Cadoo BELIEVE. I think you will too. It seems to alter my perception of time whenever it is playing. It ebbs and flows, builds and destroys itself with terrible beauty. No matter how towering and violent the scraping beats get, there are always infinitely vast synth-scapes gently sliding you toward the horizon. Sounds corny, but go ahead, put it on, and see if you don't feel something similar. The depth of emotion conveyed is incredible. I recommend going out of your way to purchase this masterpiece.

Formless
Gridlock - Formless: The seamless integration of noise and beauty, sine waves and distortion, calm and chaos.

With each successive release, Gridlock moves forward through a world built of abstract shapes and a broad tonal spectrum. Starting with "The Synthetic Form", Gridlock fused industrial sounds with a forward thinking electronic sensibility, creating a truly harsh atmosphere rarely heard in the industrial/electronic scene. Next came the innovative "Further", exploding out of the industrial carcass with emotion-steeped ambience and noisy, abrasive rhythms. "Trace" took the concept even further, leaving barely a trace of "industrial" in favor of harsh, more intelligent rhythms and beautiful flowing ambience.

"Formless" continues the trend, forging a new sound in a sea of near-plagiarisms and masturbatory "experimenters". Gridlock sounds like no one, and no one sounds like Gridlock. True innovators, their synthetic ambiences contrast the off-kilter rhythms like no other. Calm, warm melodies drench the cold steel of the rhythmic structure, a burst of static rails against the serenity of the soft ambience. An entire world is born in this album, one of perfectly balanced contrasts, a beauty that can only be reached by a perfect juxtaposition of the serene and the chaotic.

Embrace the new sonic empire.

Formless - beautiful
This album is just gorgeous, I can't stop listening to it. The soundscapes are so textural and there is beautiful juxtaposition between the harsh, crunchy glitch and the cold, distant melodies.
Highly recommended.