[Note: I have scrapped my original introduction to this review, as it was nice and informative, yet fundamentally irrelevant.]
Engines Of Myth is a feedback album. That's right. This is exactly what reads on the rear cover art's upper left hand corner: Feedback Music recordings produced on the inputless "Feedback Machines." Myers manipulated sonic emissions by way of a mixer; there's a smidgen of FM synth, but only barely. Despite the absence of synth modules, the end result isn't altogether chaotic or unmusical or devoid of textures. Much of this is akin to planetarium music ("Terra Incognita") or a soundtrack to a space documentary on Discovery Channel ("Engine Of Myth"). While this isn't exactly mild stuff, it isn't clamorous enough to deter followers of the ambient-new age scene that was propelled in the early-to-mid 1980s by Steve Roach, Michael Stearns, Kevin Braheny and Richard Burmer. Simply put: Arcane Device is no Arc. It doesn't even stand up to the current noisecore scene of today, and for that, we can be thankful.
This reissue also collects the equally long-OP EP, Improvisations for Feedback, from the same year, for sixteen minutes of bonus material. The first "Studio Front" piece is noteworthy for its quasi-melodic structure, but again: no conventional instruments.
Tracklist:
—Arcane Device 1: Engines of Myth (1988 LP)
1. Lathe 5:18
2. Engine Of Myth 2:42
3. Mg 24.312 3:03
4. Prayer Cloth 3:10
5. The Heavenly Discourse 2:48
6. Jumpstart 2:26
7. Keen Tooth 2:45
8. Terra Incognita 3:38
9. Pink Porous Rock 2:37
10. Rare Power 2:49
11. Deaf Men Hear No Tales 13:24
—Arcane Device 3: Improvisations for Feedback (1988 7" EP)
12. Studio – Front 3:13
13. Studio – Back 3:35
14. Live – Front 4:19
15. Live – Back 4:38
Total time: 60:33
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