"I am reminded of a Turner sky when I listen to this music. Everything is rich, layered, full of powerfully emotive depth, and yet all about the overbearing atmosphere that grips you firmly and pulls you into the work, as if trying to drown you." - Richard Pinnell, The Watchful Ear
"...the most enjoyable new release I've heard thus far in 2009... Rich, ringing, growling and gorgeous." - Brian Olewnick, Just Outside
"...molasses-thick, slowly-mutating drones of spellbinding character... positively nightmarish." - Textura
"The trio's piece Danjon Scale is among the most striking displays of sustained texture in recent memory. The sound they create together is hypnotic and seamless." - Peter Margasak, Chicago Reader.
"Class stuff, prime rib dark, rich drone music" - Dan Warburton, Paris Transatlantic
"The thing broods... sits there and ruminates, slowly uncoiling and re-clenching, maybe getting a little pissed off. Though it gradually becomes massive, the payoff... is the final couple of minutes where the central drone dissipates and you're left with only the ashes and echoes, a wonderfully chilly sense of desolation."- Brian Olewnick, Bagatellen
"Awesome music which is both sharp-minded and unclassifiable. A 70-minute CD of stuff like this after such a taster is not “desirable” - it’s demanded." - Massimo Ricci, Touching Extremes
"Great music... Quite enjoyable." - Frans de Waard, Vital Weekly
"Two brief but exceedingly dense works by this trio... wonderful stuff."- Brian Olewnick, Bagatellen
"Haptic contribute dark, strong work ("Velocimane"), structured in long waves of bowed metals and electronics that develops a fine, brooding feel"- Brian Olewnick, Just Outside
"Haptic's side of the 10" is even deeper and more palpable. Beats, each surrounded by a ripple of echo, loom like craters; electric buzzes seem to come at you from their far-off invisible edge and slam you against the wall... Meditate upon this stuff at your peril." - Bill Meyer, WIRE.
Creating densely textured works that can range from stark minimalism to violent, carefully directed chaos, Haptic combines a rigorous attention to sonic detail with restless experimentalism. Formed in Chicago in the spring of 2005 by Steven Hess (On, Pan American, Dropp Ensemble), Joseph Clayton Mills (Jonathan Chen, Dropp Ensemble), and
Adam Sonderberg (Dropp Ensemble, Civil War), Haptic was initially conceived as a vehicle for live collaboration. To that end, the group has frequently incorporated a different, rotating fourth member, deliberately chosen to send the music in unpredictable and challenging directions. Such collaborators have ranged from Tony Buck (The Necks) and Olivia Block to Mark Solotroff (BLOODYMINDED).
Individual members of the group have recorded for a multitude of labels, including Kranky,
Crouton, Longbox Recordings, Utech, Cathnor, Tonschacht, Entr’acte, Absurd, Type, and BOXmedia, among others.
DISCOGRAPHY:
Trebuchet | CD (Entr'acte, UK) 2009
The Medium | LTD ED 12" / digital album (FSS-005, US) 2009
Repetition | C-47 (Bloodlust! B!122, US) 2009
Velocimane | Split 10" w/ Cristal (Entr'acte E60, UK) 2008
Correction | 7" (Entr'acte E47, UK / absurd 67, GR) 2007.
Danjon Scale | Split 12" w/ Mouths (Entr'acte E37, UK) 2006.
Indifference -> Building On Fire | v/a Two Million Tongues Festival. CD (Bastet 006, US) 2005.
