An Occupied Space is the debut full-length by LA’s Robert Crouch, taking as departure point field recordings of a public place to which music is integral. The space occupied here is emblematic of anywhere anonymous herds circulate in anodyne dreamworlds. Crouch’s fields were recorded with an added criterion: to capture not just the sound, but also the music of these spaces; the places his recorder was perched had music diffused by loudspeakers to let the essential sonic constituents colour the soundfield. The work seeks to be as much about music, its function in urban contexts, the way it lulls our anaesthetized consumer wanderings, as it is itself music. Each piece takes on the aspect of a sonic tableau vivant, albeit one to which the artist also contributes as shapeshifter. In fact, they’re far more musical than other releases here in that musical elements predominate, site-specific sounds rendered more as background texture. It’s made up of drone mists and manipulations which blur the listener’s trajectory, moving through an opaque pointillist fog pierced by odd noises off in the remote crowds and fragments of decayed consumer symphony dinned out by dull PAs. Little topographic residue is foregrounded on most of the tracks, save for some whirling detritus, even then barely identifiable, late in the day; most pieces articulate themselves as richly textured ambient drone tracts, as on “Firehouse II” (clip below) – a gorgeous piece of heavens-gaze reverie. Crouch channels a certain distillate of the alienated air of these familiar yet faceless spaces, but not with the cold clinical treatment one might expect, rather conferring a peculiar warmth and intimacy. Ultimately, there’s a sense of An Occupied Space being slightly spuriously conceptually situated – as a field-fueled assemblage masquerading as a pseudo-sociological document; it may be that the process aspects are somehow lost in translation, but the impression is of a collection of musically absorbing product – sculpted pieces in which field recordings are blended with electronic treatments into evocative interior landscapes.
– Alan Lockett