by Jason Ankeny
Recorded over a span of three days in 1973, Outside the Dream Syndicate was Tony Conrad's first official release; though also credited to the celebrated Krautrock band Faust, it's primarily a showcase for Conrad's minimalist drone explorations, an aesthetic fascinatingly at odds with the noisy, fragmented sound of his collaborators. Consisting of three epic tracks, each topping out in excess of 20 minutes, the album is hypnotically contemplative; the music shifts in subtle -- almost subliminal -- fashion, and the deeper one listens, the more rewarding it becomes.