“Australian guitarist Tim Catlin and Milwaukee-based percussionist Jon Mueller have teamed up for this fantastic release on the latter’s Crouton label. Working in different recording settings over the past year, the duo have constructed variously interwoven setups utilizing prepared guitars, gongs, drums and other amplified percussion. No instrument can be played without somehow bringing its peers to life. One reviewer at Aquarius Records in San Francisco aptly described the process behind Plates and Wires as “like a game of Mouse Trap,” with each element seemingly activating the next in an endless harmonic give-and-take. What results is a very organic recording with a dream logic in place, wandering through the speakers in an hour-long musical dérive.” – Seth Watter
“When Catlin and Mueller begin to generate their quiet fluctuations of sustained harmonics and constantly abraded textures, their sounds enjoy an organic intimacy. Each droning sound emerges out of an ambient co-habitation and cross-contamination of psychoacoustic manipulation, resulting from very little (if any) digital tricks.” – Aquarius Records
The Wire August 2007
Catlin explores similar territory on Plates and Wires, his collaboration with Crouton label founder Jon Mueller, whose approach to percussion sits comfortably alongside Catlin’s dronology. Indeed, “sitting alongside” is the feel of these duo recordings: sounds don’t intersect so much as trace parallel lines within their chosen field. Incremental exposition and slow fades to black are the order of the day, though Plates and Wires is most engaging when Catlin augments his guitar with mechanical contraptions like a low-tech Remko Scha, whose Machine Guitars could be one of Catlin’s lesser acknowledged influences. In a similar manner, “Black Magnet” on Radio Ghosts treats the guitar as a willing subject for what’s probably a particularly energetic hand-held fan.” – Jon Dale
“If the quality of its artwork and packaging determined the quality of a music release, Plates and Wires might be one of the most intriguing albums ever. Handsomely clad, the record doesn’t really bounce off like a brilliantly cut diamond though; based on its sounds, it is something much more complex, and less obvious in its impressiveness. Nonetheless, Tim Catlin and Jon Mueller’s Plates and Wires is a fine collection of sounds and further proof that the Crouton imprint, run by Mueller, is generally overlooked. Through both its visual and aural elements Plates and Wires is centered around a theme of organics and a sonic grittiness. The packaging design is unique: a matted, painted print of grayish/blue and yellow wood. The back of the black matte cardboard is a white, note-type list (instrument attribution, album information, plus a ___ /300 series mark) that handles like a 10-inch record, but when I first got my hands on it I couldn’t find a side that would open to reveal any vinyl. After removing the liner sheet, an artistic and ingenious plastic jacket can be found holding the compact disc. As much of a departure from the norm as the outside is, there really is no conventional “music” to talk about inside Plates and Wires either. Those who are encouraged by the description of Tim Catlin as an Australian guitarist and Jon Mueller as a percussionist and former member of Pele, who would pre-compose an idea predicated solely on those basic chunks of information, will soon be thrown from the unbridled pony of their expectations. Through five tracks – all of which are over six minutes long – experimentation and sound texture are the focal points here, more akin to Mueller’s other work in Collections of Colonies of Bees or one of his many solo projects than to Pele. One could also consider it similar to the clanging, abrasive noises on Don Caballero’s II, when Damon Che saws a cymbal in half during the course of the song, many compositions of Plates and Wires are hinged on the sounds of metallic materials, singing in resonance and vibrating off of each other. Some tracks are unbearable in that dog-whistle pitch respect, others are interesting experiments between man and material. At worst this is a multi-faceted project that gets filed deep under art that doesn’t meet your taste palette. At best, Plates and Wires challenges more than just a sense of hearing, filed under art that is all the more interesting. Either way you take it, it is pretty fucking cool.” – Josh Zanger