AMG Review of Records 1981-1989

John Bush
All Music Guide

Records 1981-1989 is a fascinating collection of Marclay's work during the 1980s, the results of hours of home recordings -- using up to eight turntables and various other instruments of his own making -- plus many live performances (one track comes from a nationally televised appearance on the David Sanborn/Hal Willner program #Night Music). Marclay did much more than just scratching and sampling for these tracks -- "One Thousand Cycles" uses an increasing variety of repeated samples and clicks to create a complex rhythm of its own, while "Pandora's Box" varies the speed on its array of plunderphonics. (Though the latter sounds like an easy contemporary of late-'90s major-label turntablist LPs, it was originally released on a 1984 avant-indie compilation from Sweden that also featured Sonic Youth and Live Skull.)