For its latest release the Testtube netlabel has a go at buzzword bingo and introduces Bård Farbu as sound designer of his Zink EP. Whilst design implies finding a suitable form to make a product memorable and attractive to a potential customer base, the cover art cannot quite hold up the expectations: Especially the back cover looks rather dull and awkward as a result of it ignoring basic (visual) design principles. This has been a fundamental problem of Test Tube from the start, as musicians have little incluence on the label’s “corporate design” and should not be taken into the review’s account.

The Zink EP consists of five rather short and sparsely arranged pieces of minimalist ambient sound events. A lot of reverb and dub-like delay was added and the sonic construction as such remains consistent throughout the EP, perhaps lacking actual culmination points with its regularily shaped earcandy approach. One has to keep in mind that these tracks are thought as functional music in the first place, as a supplement to other points of attraction in front of a listener and thus cannot entirely draw the attention to itself in order to leave room for the remaining elements of the multimedia presentation. Despite this restriction, Bård Farbu’s sound constructions reveal enough variability to remain interesting: For example Uaktsom Stillhet and Flau Fure even explore the area of dark ambient and do not shy away from utilising piercing feedback as stylistic means.

Other tracks from this EP show some similarity to the latest productions of ec4 and David Velez, but this may be accidental and a result of common influences. Occasionally passages wind up as juxtapositions without worked out relationships and interconnection between single sound components and leave the impression of cold and sterile music. But, as already mentioned, by creating absolute music that distracts the listener from other stimuli, the “sound design” would lose its principal functionality as supplement, therefore these limitations may as well be technical necessities. By and large, Bård Farbu’s Zink EP is a decent production without any significant weaknesses to me and even works out well as standalone music to a certain degree. Thus I feel very comfortable to recommend it as download to my regular readers.