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Hierakonpolis
[Brume]
Gwenn Trémorin, manager of Brume Records and a.k.a. Flint Glass, is obviously keen on archaeology. The seven long tracks featured on his debut album are interspersed with ghostlike interludes leading us straight into the streets of Herakonpolis, the ancient Egyptian city that inspired the record's title. Further on, we hear about Amenemhat, an Egyptian royal dynasty. And yet, despite a few oriental influences (as in Hierakonpolis), the music never sounds archaic in that it reflects a time where certain styles are coming to an end, a time where sounds mutate and merge, either giving birth to harmony or creating an uninteresting cacophony. No such problem here: the perfect mastery of harmonies, saturated beats and the entrancing atmosphere, complete with rich sound effects, result in something that's neither too dark, nor too industrial. At time, you'd think of Ah Cama-Sotz, Vromb, Klangstabil, Proyecto Mirage... Included in the remix section closing the album, the hardly recognisable but dreadfully efficient version of Heliotrop by Oil 10 is a dancefloor hit contender. A very interesting debut album indeed, conveying much more maturity than the umpteenth lame effort of yet another established and unfairly successful band.
Carole Jay |
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The Slacker Journal
[Neo Ouija]
"The Slacker Journal" gathers the creations of young Swedish composer Baudi, a.k.a. Martin Abrahamsson, here presented to a significant audience for the first time. Actually, Bauri had already diffused some of his work on line but being the shy artist that he is, he'd never have dreamed of producing his own album. It's now done, thanks to a demo sent to Leo Norris, founder of Neo Ouija label and the man behind Norkern and Metamatics. Offering much more than the mere work of a couch-potato slacker, this rather touching melodic demonstration proves that the simplicity of Kraftwerk together with a modern perception of ambient still appeal to numerous electronic musicians. Track after track, the atmosphere created by Bauri evokes the creations of Richard D. James, perversion aside. The debut album of a promising new artist.
Anthony Augendre |
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Dorothy's Victory
[EMI]
As the first notes of Foolish Ship unfold, instantly evoking This Mortal Coil, it is clear that Bel Canto's references are eternal. Here again, Anneli's Drecker's voice takes us to quiet and pleasant places, where everything seems at once perfectly mastered and yet so natural.
Oscillating between ingenuousness, quietness and pop-like echoes (You Rock my World), Bel Canto settle in a normality of some sort, eradicating the apposite excesses of their previous productions. "Dorothy's Victory" sounds like their most "ordinary" and mainstream release so far
Despite a well-deserved success in North-European countries, Bel Canto never quite made it elsewhere. The commercial potential of this new album should allow them to attract the attention of those who already fell for Björk - a not so remote Icelandic cousin.
Christophe Labussière |
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Remixes From The Underground
[Pandaimonium]
Always the same recipe over and over again: just gather an impressive crowd of guest musicians around the work of a legendary band for an umpteenth "tribute" album, including a few glamorous big names to pump up the sales and incidentally bring some obscure new acts into the limelight. A rather doubtful operation, but with something in it for every participant. Alas, as exciting as it may sound, the result usually isn't up to the listener's expectations.
Rather than listing the "prestigious" guests who were put on the job and dutifully remixed the tracks from "Notes from the Underground" (the band's previous album, released last year), let's just admit that taken separately, some of the remixes are far from uninteresting and unmistakably boost the original versions. Yet on the whole, it sounds like a 90-minutes long tchak boom tchak: linear, repetitive, at time even unbearable.
Clan of Xymox obviously have a hard time trying something new besides mimicking Sisters of Mercy and the likes, but they certainly deserved better than that, although this is strictly for the dance-floors.
Note that the special limited edition contains a 3rd CD with a filmed interview (30mn, PC or Mac) of Ronny Moorings and Mojca, relating the band's history from their providential encountering with Brendan Perry and collaboration with 4AD until their recent lame gothic-rock revival.
For hard-core fans and uninspired DJs only.
Christophe Labussière |
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Mistrust The Angels
[Minuswelt]
Two years after their previous album, "Love Kills!", was released at critical acclaim, the German trio is back with a long-awaited fourth opus. For In Strict Confidence is to the electro indus genre what Mesh is to the pop scene: electronic music geniuses, with a true gift for melodies and sounds. A few weeks ago, the raging "Hertzattacke" EP. had provided us with a foretaste of their 2002 vintage, faithful to the In Strict Confidence tradition - i.e. perfect to muscle up your calves, but with no real surprises. Luckily, "Mistrust the Angels" brings the necessary breath of fresh air that will maintain the band on top of all dark electro playlists. By far the band's most mature album so far, Mistrust the Angel offers an impressive concentration of all of EBM's good old ingredients, from dark Skinny Puppy-like atmospheres to easily recognisable samples from Front Line Assembly. The tracks are more danceable than ever and logically unfold in a time-accelerating spiral. Almost all titles are potential hits, from the introductory war-like Send a Sign to Lost in the Night and to the album's sublime and meditative closing track, The Prayers of the Mute. Also more subtle in arrangements, this new album offers a pleasant alternation of rhythms, from aggressive to softer accents, including an astounding innovation for the band: the presence of female vocals, a multi-lingual (English, German and French) and wonderfully ethereal presence, either as lead vocals (Au Milieu des anges) or in duet with Dennis Ostermann (Engelsstaub). To sum up, "Mistrust the Angels" sounds like a very good sensory surprise, blowing like a welcome breath of fresh air in the surrounding heat. A must!
Stéphane Colombet |
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Cause + Effect
[ITN Corporation / EFA]
The idea was risky: releasing the remix album of a band as personal and genre-transcending as In the Nursery. All the more risky since the band's music has now evolved from cinema pop to truly symphonic compositions. But remix doesn't necessarily mean "dancefloor", and the 13 tracks featured on this new album rather sound like reinterpretations by bands obviously inspired and fascinated by the universe of the Humberstone brothers. Meaning pure electro as an introduction with a cover by Fleshfield, followed by a long atmospheric new-wave set orchestrated by the delicate interventions of Faith & the Muse, Chandeen, And Also the Trees, Attrition or Steve Bennett for a series of compositions deliberately flirting with an obsessive trip-hop. But the most surprising is to be found in the handful of purely electronic covers, far from the usual clichés, by Assemblage 23 and Haujobb. And as final proof that this no marketing trap but a real tribute to a band of exception, the album ends with a magnificent Joy Division cover by In the Nursery themselves. Respect!
Stéphane Colombet |
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Funkspiel
[Brume]
C-Krees, a.k.a. Christophe Baudrillon, has a heavy cross to bear as previous member of the now-defunct Corpus Delicti, France's biggest goth band ever, making it all the more difficult for him to impose his new musical orientations without being constantly associated with the past. For though it's nothing to be ashamed of, it undoubtedly alters people's views on his current creations. The atmospheres of his second album are once again particularly dark, but with a 100% electronic option. The modus operandi is rather classical, without yet disturbing the efficiency of the whole. The hypnotic rhythmics are backed up with popular hymns and unsettling synths layers, resulting in a pre-calculated sensory environment lacking in spontaneity, and where images are constantly suggested, even forced on the listener.
And this is probably the album's major deficiency: instead of subtle evocations, Funkspiel forces a rather cliché concept (C-Krees is obsessively keen on the U.S.S.R. of the 30s, and more precisely influenced by the book "L'Orchestre Rouge" by Gilles Perrault). Omnipresent landmarks that seem to reveal the musician's need to constantly justify himself in that they're trying to delimit the precise contours of the atmosphere crafted for the listener. An attitude that eventually attracts the attention on the concept's conventionality.
Still burdened by too many handicaps, Kom-Intern yet needs to gain confidence in order to release a truly perfectly accomplished album. Nevertheless, the efficiency of "Funkspiel" is not damaged by such minor imperfections.
Christophe Labussière |
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Windblown Kiss
[Projekt]
With this new project born from the ashes of Love Spirals Downwards, Ryan Lum seems to pick up again what he and then-vocalist Suzanne Perry had left behind with their fourth album "Flux". Much less drum n'bass-orientated, Lovespirals blossoms out in jazzy and cosy atmospheres that ostensibly move away from the band's previous heavenly inspirations. And even if despite the name, Lovespirals is to be seen as a new and independent entity from Love Spirals Downwards, one can't help but feel bitterly disappointed by this "Windblown Kiss". More lifeless and mushy than truly inspiring and ethereal, Oh So Long, He Calls Me or Swollen Sea prove to be soothing yet passionless. Anji Bee's voice does sound a little like Suzanne Perry's, but doesn't compare to earlier Love Spirals Downwards tracks, which memory is briefly revived by the enchanting You Girl. Though backed up by Eden's Sean Bowley on two titles, the pair never really gets off. Uninspired acoustic guitars, unnerving sax... "Windblown Kiss" even ends with the tepid and sensuous warbles of a cabaret ambience on the soporific I Can't See You. Perfect as background music, provided you don't pay attention too much.
Stéphane Leguay |
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Tripping Back Into The Broken Days
[Projekt]
It may not strike at first sight, but the 12 quiet acoustic titles featured on "Tripping Back into the Broken Days" emerged from a very chaotic context indeed. All in and stricken by misfortune (the death of his mother, serious health problems, a series of failed projects), Lycia's front-man Mike VanPortfleet had decided to put an end to the band's explorations with two testament-compilations featuring rarities ("Compilation Appearances vol 1 & 2") and en EP of his side-project Estraya - making today's resurrection and even more significant and heartening event. What a delight to plunge back into those wintry landscapes and desert stretches, creative compost of a duet that still excels at turning the wind into a melody and greyness into raw material... Originally planned as the follow-up of the first Estraya release ("The Time Has Come and Gone"), "Tripping Back into the Broken Days" retains Estraya's sober and stripped aspect, giving up the electric guitars of former years to acoustic arpeggios and folk melodies. A modified form that nevertheless makes room for ethereal synths and for Lycia's very own thundery, down tempo melancholy. From wide spaces so empty they make you feel dizzy (Vacant Winter Day) to the disillusioned contemplation of an ever-dissolving time (Broken Days), the duet's universe stretches languorously along foggy landscapes, catching a few fragments of light and hope here and there (It's Okay to be Small, Cat & Dog). Between Mike VanPortfleet's muffled whispers and Tara Vanflower's dream-like singing, nothing seems to be able to break the spell surrounding this intimist new Lycia album between silent storms and monochrome rainbows, filled with grace right to its most poetic texts (Asleep in the River). The pair is back on its way to celestial heights they almost never came back from. To our utter delight...
Stéphane Leguay |
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Fighting Spirit
[Bloc 46/UWe]
After a 10-year long career, the most famous French hard-core DJ releases his first album (and a double one, mind you). His multiple collaborations, including Torgull and a philharmonic orchestra, have probably encouraged him to compose and experiment with different genres since, as he himself comments, the music featured on this debut album is the hybrid result of different styles (electro, ambient, hip hop, drum n'bass...). Thus the probable disappointment of all basic brain-atomised ravers and other saturated BPMs addicts, though this undoubtedly a deliberate attempt from Manu le Malin at conquering a new audience. The first CD, more experimental, reveals this merging of influences, and includes bands regularly featured on Manu's DJ play-list such as Converter or Imminent (Starvation). A track like Necronom even sounds like Electronicat meets Converter. The second CD, more intense, is more in keeping with Manu's regular work and shall put fans' minds at ease. A very welcome initiative indeed, but not a suicidal one, despite the direct allusion to the kamikaze motto in the album's title.
Carole Jay |
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Natural High
[Resurrection Records]
Launched by the London-based Resurrection Records stable, Manuskript emerged in the mid-90s as yet another member of the brit goth and dark-wave revival, among fellow bands such as Vendemmian, Inkubus Sukkubus, Suspiria or The Horatii. At the time, their gothic-rock relied on the usual classical influences of the genre (Sisters of Mercy, Mission and the likes) but in a hand-off way, as the title of their first e.p., "I Can't Believe it's not Goth", suggested.
Since then, the electro pop wave has flooded the scene, pulling the band in its wake. The new tracks are nice but lack in originality and depth, and this is probably the main thing to criticise about Manuskript. Natural High sounds like a decent enough effort in the "goth dancefloor" category, but it is a quite a dispensable record. Unless you're particularly keen on the flock of new acts swelling the ranks of the "dark" electro pop scene, a higher-calibre band like Mesh is definitely a much more interesting option.
Laure Cornaire |
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European Onion
[Pluxemburg/Rocket Girl]
"European Onion" is the third album from Plexus, a band of barmy Swedish guys who have to be four in order to produce the sound of a C4, as one of their fans affectionately pointed out on their Web site! Pluxus yet started their career as a pop guitar band, until one of the members decided to buy a synth. Since then, they all started experimenting with a more or less vintage equipment (both analogical and digital), just like others would toy with their distortion pedals. The guitars left, but the pop stayed: touching, accessible short tracks (IgŒr, Idag Och From Nu), hopping melodies (Psykopott, Agent Tangent, Polyfant), sometimes very naive, almost muzak-like (Business) or Radiohead-like songs (Molltolerans). But all the band's compositions share one thing in common, in that they joyfully evoke (not unlike all those blossoming 80s compilations) the good old video games of our childhood, like Lektrogirl, Frederik Schikoswki, Mat 101 or the astonishing Claire Broadley (Printed Circuit), who cites Plexus as a major source of inspiration. In short, the "symphonic lo-fi super mario pop" is born, and maybe only the Swedish could represent it in such a brilliant way. Tack så mycket* Pluxus! (*Swedish for "thanks")
Carole Jay |
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Silicom Two
[Progressive Form]
Though his first album is still running in our CD players, here comes Aoki Takamasa's second release, soberly entitled "Silicom Two", a name designating the collaboration between the Tokyo-based musician and the film-maker Takagi Masakatsu. Both artists won the respect of all digital creations enthusiasts thanks to the brilliant quality and innovative aspect of their work. All of Aoki's musical concept is based on the free interpretation of the frequencies and sequences produced by his own software equipment (an equipment he made up himself thanks to the Max/MSP program system). Aoki manages to move us with these 11 tracks alternating from abrasion to melancholy but all providing a trip through an unusual sensory landscape.
Anthony Augendre |
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Murray Street
[Polydor]
Sonic Youth are a quiet band. It is ages ago since the fury than inspired our favourite seething youths gave way to a more subtle music, at time flirting with jazz and more often than not with psychedelic influences thanks to the distorted guitars. Since the stupendous success of "Goo", in 1990/91, the band, out of integrity, had deliberately given up pop tracks. Though MTV managed to pick up a few hits on the following albums, the band's last two releases, "A Thousand Leaves" in 1988 and "NYC Ghosts & Flowers" in 2000, had eventually got the better of the system. Who longer cared about Sonic Youth , whose name was even becoming obsolete (talk about a forty-something "Youth"). This new album shouldn't therefore sound like a total surprise to anyone. The music's been gradually stripped down to the bone, leaving only a skeleton of wispy, oppressing melodies, oscillating between deep depression and somnolent melancholy.
It is no longer time to discover Sonic Youth, since Sonic Youth now moves in a closed circuit. With so few people left to convince, the band's elitist music can easily stay up to the fans' expectations: brilliant, spontaneous, moving, even if it will no longer surprise anybody. And why not bring a new member into the family: Jim O'Rourke, producer of the band's previous album. None will see it as a sacrilege after a twenty-year long existence, will they? The music had the last word (wasn't it one of the band's first priority?) and only long discordant guitar complaints remain, not unlike the discordant sessions that almost systematically concluded their earlier tracks. For "Murray Street" is but the echo of a never-ending larsen declined in a variety of tones, a perfect soundtrack for foggy days or nervous breakdowns. The rest of the time, just stick to "Goo" or "Daydream Nation", so as to regain enough energy to fight the surrounding greyness...
Frédéric Thébault |
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Court-Martial
[E.N.D.E]
Along with David Tibet or Edward Ka-Spel, Kirlian Camera's frontman Angelo Bergamini belongs to this specific category of artists urged by an inalterable thirst for creation, and who seem to only find comfort in the multiplicity of side-project and collaborations. After Ordo Ecclesiae Mortis, T.A.C., Alien Maryr or Uranium USSR 1972, Stalingrad is Bergamini's umpteenth side-project (together with vocalist Helena Fossi) and the most closely related to Kirlian Camera. So closely related indeed that this "Court-Martial" could have been included in the Italian combo's discography. The Symphonic compositions (Neither Honour nor Glory) or more industrial and synthetic tracks (Court Martial) can only but remind us of Kirlian Camera's regular work, especially of the "Solaris/The Last Corridor" period. An analogy further reinforced by the presence of typically "Bergaminian" production gimmicks such as electronic manipulations (Slavonija) or war-like drums (Morriconiaca), but which doesn't lessen the overall quality of a both airy and martial, bright and funeral, album. A record with references as delicate as painful which, far from any political concept (but not without a certain cynicism), continues to contemplate the scars of our XXth century.
Stéphane Leguay |
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Boo Hoo
[Projekt]
Stop-motion animation, comics, role plays, music... Voltaire is a young New-York artist with more than one string to his creative bow. Like an elegant fiddler, he develops his own fantastic world peopled with unidentified morbid creatures, vampires, and Tim Burton-like little monsters. As far as music is concerned, expect a good touch of grating humour sung with casualty and lightness. The association of the acoustic guitar and the violin conveys a little Human Drama touch (a band also featured on the Projekt label) doubled with a very cabaret-like atmosphere. Allegedly inspired by a sentimental break-up, "Boo Hoo" yet never sounds like a song of despair. With his crooner accents, Voltaire (whose voice at time echoes a certain Morrissey) excels at slightly ironic pieces, in the image of his fantasy world. He even treats himself with two covers, Björk's "Bachelor(ette) and Tori Amos' Caught a Lite Sneeze. A delightful surprise indeed for all acoustic pop lovers!
Laure Cornaire |
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Yet another Lowfish album! After "The Accident Causer" released two months ago on Ersatz Audio, Gregory de Rocher (co-founder of Suction Records with Jason Amm, a.k.a Solvent) delivers the goods again on his own label with a new six-tracks EP. "Maintain The Tension" is, as usual, a perfect example of lively, slightly nostalgic, electro proving once again that this Canadian musician excels at producing what he himself calls "robot music", but never mind the tag: this record is above all very estimable.
"Invisible Architecture" is the name of a series of new live collaborations released on Audiosphere, a new Belgian label. After a first try by P. Jeck, O. Yoshihide and M. Tetreault, the second album recorded more than two years ago in Brussels gathers, this time, Mika Vainio (Pan Sonic) and Christian Fennesz. The CD, sets out in a DVD box format and soberly called Vainio Fennesz Vainio contains two sessions of nearly 30 minutes each; the two artists join in the first one while the second is an improvisation by Mika Vainio alone. The result lays somewhere between the power of IBM's experimentations (Pan Sonic + Bruce Gilbert) and Christian Fennesz's laptop/guitar's universe.
Onukeïo, whose eponymous CD is released on Ombre Sonore, is the project of an ex-Stigma member. Sober, precise, the musical style of this record is peculiar. Tracks have no names and their atmosphere goes from melancholy to cheerfulness. Like the "airy" art cover, the whole is light, wrapped in a kind of more cerebral than dancing rhythmic electronica. A very pleasant album indeed, despite the repetitive style which tends to unify the whole (even if the record has only been recently released, the compositions date back to 1996/1997).
For his first solo album entitled "Saturno o Cipolla?", Eric Aldéa(ex-Deity Guns and Bästard), a jazz fan like Diamanda Galàs, reveals here again his musical open-mindedness. As obvious in the seven tracks of this record, especially composed for choreograph Abou Lagraa's company, he cheerfully mixes electronic and string instruments (double-bass, violins, cello...), at times evoking :zoviet*france: thanks to its bewitching aspect. An ever-evolving search for the right style which should easily reach maturity.
Carole Jay
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