Preslav Literary School is the project of Berlin based Adam Thomas. He composes music based on the use of cassette players and found analog recordings that are cut up, re-edited, manipulated, and looped back on to analog cassettes similar to the approach of Jason Zeh but heavier on found sounds and drones than cassette manipulation. The opening track from what is Thomas‘s second “studio“ album, “John the Exarch,” begins with what sounds like multi dubbed cassette noise with an ambient layer of dark keyboard tones. Soon, the cassette noise fades out to reveal the sound of birds chirping and someone, most likely, speaking German, played backwards. Half way through all sounds are reduced to just the keyboards slowly droning back and forth between notes and slowly fades out. There is a definite “ghost” quality to this music, brought out by the use of found and manipulated tapes that Thomas points out in the liner notes to come from “sounds from old recordings by others and patterns within the tape hiss.” “Beautiful Was the Time” is an interesting listen and serves as a nice short introduction to the music of Preslav Literary School. 6/10 -- Jon Lorenz (26 January, 2010)