Quinn Collins - "Nine Bagatelles" album review

 Quinn Collins - Nine Bagatelles album review

Collins' world of thick, noise-filled sound is positively mind-numbing, resulting in an environment where any sense of mortal time ceases to exist.

The analog modular synthesizer is an unpredictable beast of cables, nearly impossible to tame as a musical instrument. Quinn Collins, an electroacoustic composer based in Philadelphia,  attempts to do just this in his most recent album, Nine Bagatelles. The album comprises nine 'semi-curated' improvisations for solo monophonic analog synthesizer. Collins successfully brings out a sense of musicality within the noise, creating complex rhythmic and timbral patterns.

Each track emphasizes a new soundscape which is used by Collins as an improvisational jumping off point. Collins' world of thick, noise-filled sound is positively mind-numbing, resulting in an environment where any sense of mortal time ceases to exist. While the tracks vary from less than a minute to more than ten, the music, or noise, all comes across as completely natural in development of sound.


The most engaging works included on Nine Bagatelles are ones where Collins brings the synthesizer's rhythmic possibilities to the forefront. "Rubber Pocket", the second track on the album, is a great example. The music literally bounces in such a way that it becomes its own groove, with pitch being completely secondary.

Despite the wide range of sounds Collins pulls out of the noise-maker, Nine Bagatelles does suffer from some of the limitations of the instrument. Many of the timbres are similar enough that it results in just tonal noise rather than music, especially to listeners not familiar with analog synthesizers. While tracks like "Laser Cannon" are funny, Collins is literally mocking the stereotypical sound of a sci-fi laser, they can quickly become tedious. The pacing on the album assists in mitigating such an issue, with the more quirky tracks being both shorter and separated by longer, drone-based pieces.

Listen and purchase the full album on Bandcamp here, released by record label collective Belts & Whistles.

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© 2023 Brutal New Music Reviews
originally written and published 9 January 2023

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