Given access to a makeshift studio in the barracks of an abandoned army base, eclectic experimental composer (and New Amsterdam co-founder) William Brittelle created Alive in the Electric Snow Dream, a hypersonic trip through a fractured but fascinating musical mind. Joined by a varied roster of multidisciplinary musicians, including jazz sax star Immanuel Wilkins, singer/songwriting guitarist Ben Cassorla, vocalists Jenn Wasner, Holland Andrews, and Eliza Bagg, and the Metropolis Ensemble, the percussionist/electronicist kicks out the jams in his own unique way. The multi-part suite combines bits of freeform noise, mutated transmissions, seething strings, subliminal guitar, and ghostly singing into a lucid nightmare of oddly soothing sonic insanity. No telling what was going through Brittelle’s mind at the time – maybe he just needed an outlet for the sounds that wouldn’t fit in the pieces he was composing for vocal ensemble Roomful of Teeth at the same time – but surely the demons were exorcised through the process. A mini-monument to uneasy listening.
