After cementing his status with ?Zygosis? as Erik M, joining the small pile of avant-garde turntablists (notables being Christian Marclay and Otomo Yoshihide), Erik has consistently shifted his focus between free-improv and musique concr?te. On ?St?me?, under his eRikm pseudonym, he has taken the glitch stamp-of-approval technique of CD-damaging, taking 1-minute passages of disfigured sound and manipulating it with a variety of live-processing techniques. Haswell & Hecker?s ?Blackest Ever Black? and Yasunao Tone?s output are perhaps the closest points of reference, where barely audible static hissing screams into threatening, condensed explosions. ?Puff? and ?Organic? give you the closest glimpses of the source material: sublime snatches of field-recorded segments sneak in before being swathed in noise. Although the high-range, ecstatic drone of ?White Out? is a fantastic gauge of eRikm?s versatility ? think a buzz-saw Birchville Cat Motel type drone ?it sits at odds with the tone set. ?St?me??s brutally anti-harmonic stance seems to lose subtlety during the track?s drawn-out crescendo. The clicks, scratches and spontaneous static blasts are substituted by sustained notes ? and witness the album slide from sonic art into music. Since it occupies over 40% of ?St?me?, it would be ridiculous to label ?White Out? as an anomaly. To shift so unexpectedly from chance-based to orchestrated modes of production is a brave move. I?ve only got the press release to go off, so I?d love to know what eRikm was intending. But from afar, ?St?me? works well as two halves, not as a whole. 6/10 -- David Ainley (23 July, 2008)