emptyset - Dissever

A Closer Listen

Before the Tate Modern was a gallery, it was the Bankside power station, generating electricity for London between 1891 and 1981. While much of the building was converted into gallery space, it was decided that the imposing space of the Turbine Hall should be left empty and open. It’s a move that has paid off; the vastness of the space is enough to quieten even the noisiest visitor upon arrival and at least have them approach the art within in a receptive frame of mind. The other benefit is that large-scale installations can find a home – a giant sun, anybody? – and, on occasion, it can host concerts, such as the very apt Kraftwerk residency. But the Tate’s prior history as an industrial site, full of generators, springs to mind when presented with the new emptyset album.

This is not a coincidence – Dissever was first presented to the public in a live performance at the Tate Modern, accompanying the Electric Dreams exhibition. Surveying art and technology in the pre-internet world, when we had computers but no AI and no social media, Electric Dreams featured innovators whose work may have been marginalised by the rapid developments in software and hardware but certainly deserve recognition today. All these elements must have made emptyset, who have done multiple installations and site-specific performances previously, feel right at home.

It’s an album that benefits from playing at a decent volume – much like a live performance would blast over an expectant crowd. The pulsing bassline and crackly analogue synth on the opening “Gloam” have an ebb and flow balanced with a relentless drive. These recordings were live takes, and it feels as if the duo of James Ginsburg and Paul Purgas were pushing the limits during the recording and had to back off on occasion, to prevent a complete meltdown of recording and musical equipment. At times, it’s as if the recording is about to implode when a gnarly loop turns into a storm of angry wasps on both “Penumbra” and the title track. It’s a full-on trip of mangled electronics until the closing “Dawn” which, fittingly, eases back on the noisier elements and lets a little light in.

It’s been some six years since Blossom, emptyset’s previous album on Thrill Jockey, and the immediate response is that Dissever is a more full-on experience – the duo utilise a similar tonal language but, for 2025, they’ve incorporated a more rhythmic approach. Several of the pieces have more time to evolve which works to the album’s benefit – I think these are the longest works they’ve recorded since the Signal EP in 2015, which was more ambient. There’s still a palpable sense of electricity that sends sparks from the hi-fi to the listener as if you were standing in a giant turbine hall as the generators were whirring. (Jeremy Bye)