It began as an undefined audio project in Spring 2012, a disparate collection of software-generated samples and crudely mixed tracks. Undergoing the early phase of chemo-therapy beginning in Autumn of that year, Felix Mace recognized that his cognitive parameters were adapting to the industrial chemicals he’d been prescribed, a side effect that left the usual creative outlets oddly unrewarding. The only thing that felt good in his head was sound. Digital audio generation and editing, demanding minimal physical effort and offering disproportionately great returns, mainly in the retention of mental acuity and a healthy sense of control over his daily life, came to the fore: the tedious minutia of micro-samples; the joys of arbitrary filter processing; reckless mixing; endless revision to the fullest extent. No rules, no expectations, no pressure. After a moment of realization that what he was doing was vitally important to his well being, a mere project became a personal exploration of mental, emotional and physical responses to cancer and treatment.

Boundary Situation front-loads dense tangles of diminutive noise squiggles and mechanical jitters, with elusive roars always corroding the fringes. It progresses through corridors and courtyards of increasing sparseness and disconnected unreality, and concludes in the peculiar triumphant glow of Man Against Nature. Voices with standard-issue clinical neutrality (as well as one or two that are unnervingly chummy) reciting assigned texts, institutionally formal instructions, and answers to FAQs zigzag between panting, birds chirping, owls hooting, a children’s playground, jet engines, railroads, and other sound effects. Mace’s labyrinths of looping and filtering, woozy guitar noise backdrops, appropriations of folky acoustic guitar, R’n’B instrumentals, and fragments of sharp piano playing are elaborate, yet navigable and uncluttered.

Boundary Situation is a masterful hybrid of electronics and musique concrete, inspired by good ol’ fashioned existential dread, overcome by dexterous manipulation of its own alienating elements.