I don't listen to this kind of exploratory music, and the varieties/genres mentioned are largely foreign to my experience, but I did have an ARP Odyssey once that was the source of much amusement and delight. I'd set up a sample-and-hold and mess with the LFO and envelope modulation, and then grab my guitar or keyboard, jamming along...and, yes you'd have enjoyed both the music I made and some of what I was smoking. Anyway, there is definite coolness in this stuff, both pieces. It strikes me that what makes this music and not noise is the harmonic and rhythmic structure, however tenuous and demanding. One of the things I'm hearing, and I'll address this more to Patrick's piece, is a sense of shifting patterns. It's like my explorations on hand drums where I'll start out a rhythm, and as I get lost in it, experience a drift in its structure where accents and groupings shift, almost in a tromp l'oeil fashion. Foreground flips with background, lights become darks, repetition alternates between hands, patterns invert, etc. I'm hearing the same thing happening here, and if you either concentrate or abandon all concentration you will hear micro and macro structures emerge from this music. Another example, or even metaphor if you will, is the stroboscopic phenomenon involved in rotating objects where the velocity and direction of movement appear to change as you watch. So, Patrick, a suggestion as to what you might do with Ascension, is take any of a number of filters, and looking at the patterns suggested by the waveforms, draw envelope automation lines to emphasize and enhance them. You can do this with multiple tracks and effects, which would draw out of this work its inherent structure as well as maximizing this "tromp l'oreille" experience. You could do this with modulation effects such as phasing and flanging, EQ changes, amplitude and panning, compression, etc. After layering on several patterns, you might have something of real complexity and interest. The interplay could be hypnotic. It should also be practical to do this even with an hour-long piece by simply following the frequency and amplitude changes in the wave form. Of course, if you've got the time and motivation, you could also listen carefully, and work your editing with intention in sync with the actual voice of the piece. Frank