Richard H. Kirk: Dasein

Released at the end of June 2017 through his Intone Productions label, Dasein is a great Richard H. Kirk album in many ways.  Recorded at intervals over a three-year period from late 2012 to late 2015, while Kirk worked on other projects, it reintroduces voice (albeit heavily treated samples of his vocalizing) and, especially, guitar, which has not been heard on any of his recordings for a long time.  These add a level of depth and richness to the music and are welcome reintroductions to his work..

The pieces are uniformly excellent, filled with the dub-influenced electronic melange that Kirk has mastered over many decades.  The titles hint at some of his usual concerns, including "Nuclear Cloud," "Radioactive Water," "Invasion Pretext," and "Sub/Antarctic/H2O," the latter appearing to have some reference to climate change (maybe).

This is a strong release from someone whose electronic music has been challenging and invigorating this listener for over thirty years and is an indication that the creative spirit is far from diminishing in Kirk's monumental body of work. 

As a sidenote, just having finished the often-difficult reading of an anthology of German philosopher Martin Heidegger, a core concern of his was the nature of dasein, or being.  So, it seemed quite a coincidence that I bought the CD last year and then followed up, unintentionally, with the purchase of the Heidegger anthology.