Sound Clips
Softly Coil (From the CD Tissue Paper Ghosts)
(Mikronesia)
"Glitchy ethereal ambience - beatless in places, carried by programmed percussion in others. The album opens with twinkling electronics and reversed notes all crackling with jumping static as if the signal has met with interference. There are effects like distorted little Chinese gongs, voices swirling and echoing as if captured from a broken radio broadcast, montaged cuts and snips of sound, there are softer tonal washes below - wistful and meandering. On the third track an electro-groove is introduced, light and graceful - stronger rhythms carry track four 'Del Rio' where a pumping synthetic bass drives reverberating chimes and some strongly effected spoken voices. Mikronesia use a number of repeated loops to ghostly effect - indeed there are some hauntingly beautiful passages especially toward the end of the album where synthetic strains gently intertwine, wavering somewhat unsteadily as half-remembered speech flickers in and out of earshot."
-Paul Jury, Morpheus Music
"Gears of Sand is one of the more professional CDR labels. Nice design, full color label artwork, printed on the CDR and great music . . . a nice release of melodic ambient music that is throughout these eight pieces rhythmic oriented in a sort of tribal/pseudo ethnic way, a bit like a more mechanical Rapoon, with mumbling voices here and there, chilly synths and all other fine ingredients for solid atmospheric music . . . The music doesn't grab one and force you to pay full attention, but perhaps that's not the idea of Mikronesia. In another life, this would be a more adventurous ambient house thing, reminding me of Meridian Dream (but I might be the only one to remember). It's pleasant to listen to while doing whatever you do; not too demanding music."
-Franz de Waard, Vital Weekly
"Tissue Paper Ghosts finds composer/producer/laptopper McDermott stepping into his role as solo sonic seducer for a meditative drone-scape adventure based around the psychic remains of a car crash. Though slowly enveloping melodies make the softly clanging "Untitled Love" and the blip-filled "Arms Bent" gorgeous and sedative, woeful winds and menacing crickets aren't far behind, infiltrating unsettled tracks like "Slow Bleeding" and the swooshy, buzzy "Happy Birthday, Goodbye." Overall though, the tender TPG —much in league with say, the instrumental side of Bowie's Heroes —is a cleverly quiet joy that doesn't let you rest in peace."
-A.D. Amorosi , Philadelphia City Paper. 3/20/2006