on opus 10128
en
_sirr011

Welcome to the sound world of Pal Toth, aka én, where nothing is quite
what it seems and your only tool to figure it out is your imagination. Toth
leaves no liner notes, no track titles, barely an album title and artist
name that say so little they might as well be missing. Even Marc
Behrens cover artwork gives the impression of a trace left by something
missing: huried scribbles on a piece of wood on the front and the markings
of four pieces of scotch tape that once held in place a square of...
something. Each of the three lengthy tracks presents roughly the same
materials using the same method. Ambient sound recordings (the hiss of a
room), the klang of metal on metal, creaking doors and floors, etc. are
placed like objects in a vast, echoey room. They move slowly and are treated
in a way that slightly alters reality so as to make further treatments (time
stretching, reverb) sound plausible. Early on each piece leaves a lot of
room to silence and very gradually fills up its space, then ends with a bang
(a door slammed shut or a final reverberating klang). It seems that the
artist aims at giving the impression of static movement despite an obvious
rise in activity and decibel. Op.10218 requires your full, undivided
attention if you don’t want it to disappear into the background noise of
your everyday life. If you hold on for the ride, it will unfold like a walk
around a sinister haunted house. Just don’t expect tacky sound effects.
François Couture, All music Guide

The pieces shift from offering an extremely minimal, muted soundtrack to
sudden waves of intense sound, progressing slowly, often repeating elements,
interruptions, dissonances, with slight, subtle changes and fluctuations.
This music is truly immersive, filling every crack of your environment,
sometimes without you even knowing it.
Richard di Santo, Incursion Org

Consisting of three long tracks, Portuguese label SIRR.ecords has again
released a pure abstraction that is blissfully minimal. Hungarian Pal Toth
plays out time in this near silent opus. Howling groans and vague barren
hollows keep his work certifiably distant. Sharp ghostly churns are
complimented by the austere unknown play with fore/background. This record
takes time to warm up but once track two starts it has all the purr of an
atonal ocean. We end up on the ocean, set adrift in a digital current, with
the curvaceous lapping waves drawing the ear deeper into the central deep
sea vortex. In the final four minutes distinct cod! es are flashed before
our ears. They speak in fragmented patterns that are simultaneously anxious
and distracted. By and large, OP.10218 v1.2 is a new step for
micro-electronics but the artist's hand is compellingly missing throughout,
leaving the recipe in the hands of improvisational intellect.
TJ Norris Igloo Magazine

Pol Toth creates an ambience of solitude and timelessness in the first
track, as if you are listenening to desolate soundinstallations in huge
empty halls. Sudden waves of intense sound make clear that there is more to
it. Invisible creatures create some vague metallic rumbling. The second
track seems to be recorded somewhere outside, where the weather mixes with
hums from various sources and metallic noises. A distant wall of sound on
the boarder of hearablity, like the sea of the other side of the dunes. The
third track is one with interruptions and dissonances. Again the metallic
noises, like a prepared piano can be detected. The overwhelming solitude
from the first track is present again, creating an evolving sense of time
and duration. Even when the music becomes more intense and darker at the
end.
Phosphor Magazine

More weird scenes inside the beehive come by way of Én, whose insectoid drone menace is the stuff of bug-eyed monster pulp fictions. The sounds that form the basis of Op. 10218 V1.2 harness the fluorescent-tube bait of moth-zappers as their central pulse, around which Én orbits the odd unlucky flyby who gets summarily vaporized. Interesting how so many lap(top)dogs are in love with the physicality of electricity. Én’s admiration is obvious, but unlike many who preach noise-for-noise’s sake, at least he’s clever enough to broach practicality out of abject theory. Cursory listens might only reveal the artist’s seemingly one-dimensional fixation on the incessant traits of a singular, horizontal power surge, but it’s more of a magnet attracting the ephemeral noises (struck sheetmetal, molested violins, atonal cries and whispers, random incidentals) toward it with unrepellant force. Én succeeds—the listener is drawn in as well.
e|i magazine