"Before you play two notes learn how to play one note - and don't play one note unless you've got a reason to play it." - Mark Hollis (1998)You can do a lot with one note, Kranky's latest featured artist Ken Camden lets sounds play out in real time leaving the overall soundscape relatively uncluttered. Whirring drone effects interweave and converse, just like people they sometimes come together but then clash and crash off each other with long painful groans .... and then an appreciative silence! His work blends modern composition and Krautrock-inspired 'kosmische musik' with Indian ragas and harder experimentalism. The Kranky crowd are anything but kranky, but with some notable exceptions their output during the last 17 years has mainly been at the quieter end of the spectrum, a comfort for restless ears, soft warm drones but the occasional spiky eureka moment to really set things on fire. The label's so-called 'experimental' music oeuvre has an earthy quality and unusual vibrancy, and it's this which stands out most in Camden's promising debut Lethargy & Repercussion. Six sonic installations, hand-picked from countless 'real-time' takes, not for their technical brilliance but the idiosyncrasies which give each one a life of its own.This artist draws heavily on eastern influences to support the sonic structures of his work. The "buzzing" sound created by the tanpura, a long fretless Indian lute, allows other sounds to resonate more brightly, a principle of Indian classical music called 'jiva', believed to bring life and soul to the music, and often likened to white light refracting into the colours of the rainbow. The 'key-note' provided by this instrument anchors the sound on 'Lethargy' as Camden has the rest of the harmonics playing out warmly in both an 'inner' and 'outer' journey.Heading inwards, the kosmische musik-inspired opener 'Birthday' keyboard spins and twirls like something from the early works of Tangerine Dream and Klaus Schulze (or more famously, Kraftwerk's 1978 classic The Man Machine), while the tanpura weaves its magic, a presence maintained throughout the album. 'Raagini Robot' is programmed synth harmonics, this time the grinding sound snakes in and out of the song, rather too angular and 'masculine' for the feminine counterpart of the 'raga', perhaps the feminine chip removed from this son-of-Kraftwerk-replicant ... 'In your ears' is dissonant and hard again, sharp and edgy, 'experimental' and academic, maybe the album's harshest moment. 'Raga' on the other hand is vibrant and warm, the drone supports the deliciously fuzzy guitar noodling, warm colours splashed all over it. It's my album highlight ... until I flashback to White Rainbow's 2007 'Prism of eternal now', it's spookily similar to Adam Forkner's work ... (more of that later)The outward journey starts in 'New space', where guitar morphs into synth, then stomps off into space rock where we find 'Jupiter', more substantive, almost cinematic in scope ('2001: A Space Odyssey'), but this is two guitars soaring together to something drone-aficionados call the 'vanishing point' where all the sounds resonate into one clear tone silencing everything around them. Jeff Tweedy's used this effect as an expression of the slow and painful rise of migraine attacks in the 12-minute drone on Wilco's 'Less than you think'. Camden's journey is more positive and affirming, one of those Kranky eureka moments.Perhaps Lethargy & Repercussion could have been take up a notch or two sonically, a track like 'Raagini Robot' would end up more than just a pleasant installation with a bit more ambition. It's easy to be transfixed by Kranky labelmates White Rainbow and Stars Of The Lid, both of whom overlay their sound with rich textures and atmospherics ... technically brilliant and yet still space to explore. Camden's recording is pitched differently, loops are set up without the trickery of overdubs and sounds introduced gradually as each moment unfolds, the artist constantly reacting to each change in timbre and tempo, truly embedding the sound in the present, but life with all its stops and starts and modern electronics just isn't like that is it? I would liken Lethargy & Repercussion more to a 'one-off' great gig in the sky, perhaps ... shine on you crazy diamond!