Local Review: The Frenetic Process – Glass Bottle Collage

The Frenetic Process
Glass Bottle Collage

Self-Released
Street: 02.12
The Frenetic Process = Roni Size + Chino Amobi

The newest EP from local electronic duo The Frenetic Process (Matt Saari and Caleb Johnson), Glass Bottle Collage, is a brief and total piece of music that adds to the group’s run of great releases.

The whole EP flows together seamlessly. This makes Glass Bottle Collage feel less like a collection of songs and more like a singular track, moving in and out of segments of high-paced, glitchy breakbeat and calmer, foggier movements of psychedelic trip-hop. The project as a whole is far more cohesive, and much less segmented than the word “collage” might initially signal to listeners.

Throughout Glass Bottle Collage, Johnson and Saari give their tracks more of a psychedelic haze than on their last project, Early Onset > Late Bloomer. The effect is that nothing in Glass Bottle Collage’s production feels quite as pronounced as on their last record. This works both positively and negatively—on one hand, it’s effective in constructing a splendid ether for the entire project to dwell in, on the other, some of the sharpness that I normally associate with sample-based, glitchy electronica can feel a little dull.

That isn’t to say that this EP doesn’t offer some pulse-raising moments. “Glass Break” is an exhilarating, unpredictable two minutes. The two longest tracks on the project, “Hallucinogens as Party Favors” and “Scrambled Exit (Reflections)” offer the best balance of atmospheric and ambient with the more glitchy elements of the project.

The fantastic emphasis on soundscapes makes me wish that Glass Bottle Collage was a full-length project—I want to be able to get totally lost in Johnson and Saari’s world. There are a significant amount of layers to dive into on this, and it makes the project incredibly listenable, but before I can really allow myself to be fully enveloped by the music on this EP, it’s over. I’m forced to press the play button to start it over again, which removes me from its wonderful trance. –Evan Welsh

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