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Hitchhiking Nonstop With No Particular Destination
[!K7]
Revealed in 1999 with their fantastic debut album "Close The Door", the German trio Terranova had naturally found their place between DJ Shadow, Tricky and Massive Attack among those rare musicians that work to bring together the different audiences of hip-hop, rock and electronic music. After this more than promising first test, the band is now offering us its first real masterpiece, "Hitchhiking Nonstop...". Their sound got heavier, even dirtier to say the least, and the Meister/Fetish duo shows the darker side of their influences. One can't help thinking about Tricky, who wouldn't deny some of the tracks (Equal Rights, Goodbye the Ferrari) yet without their sonic excesses. The different vocal appearances prove the diversity of the album: New York poet Mike Ladd raps on two of the tracks, Cath Coffey from Stereo MC's lends again her voice to the producers' outrages (Breathe). As to Arianne (a.k.a. Ari-Up), former singer of the all girls punk band the Slits 25 years ago, one can wonder where they managed to find her. At any rate, the meeting is dynamite, Equal Rights and Mongril are the most achieved tracks of the album. Add to this a powerful sample of Bauhaus on Running Away and a guitar orgy on Goodbye the Ferrari, and you get an album groovy and powerful, rough and tuneful, organic and electronic, a rare success for a band that now qualifies to be among the greatest.
Eric Semenzin |
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Outpost Transmission
[Circus]
Forerunners, pioneers or veterans, 808 State has now been offering us a clever mix of pop and electronic for more than ten years. Maybe their Manchester roots gave them this gift or maybe it is just the chance of meeting and collaborating with Bernard Sumner, Björk or Michael Doughty of Soul Coughing, but until now, Graham Massey, Andrew Barker and Darren Partington appeared as sorcerers as each and every one of their production left a mark and inspired the following generations. But this time, after five years of silence, their come back seems more difficult. There's nothing to say about the inmost quality of the album, "Outpost Transmission" offers 70 faithful minutes of what has made their success until now, but the magic has gone. Yet three interesting guest vocals (Simon Lord of Simian, Guy Garvey of Elbow and Dwayne and Larry Love of Alabama 3) try to bring consistence to the album, but without much success. More lounge than dance, quieter than pop, 808 State doesn't seem inspired, and even if we can content ourselves with it after these long waiting years, even if several listenings are necessary to glimpse the depth of "Outpost Transmission", we hope this is just a transition album and that the band quickly comes back to a style they once invented and where they were the best at until then.
Christophe Labussière |
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Loud Like Nature
[Mute/Labels]
Following the excellent "Add Insult To Injury" in 2000, "Loud Like Nature" is the fourth album of Add N To (X), this title being as well the title of an installation the band exposed last year at the Printemps de Bourges. Recorded in one year by Barry Smith, Ann Shenton and Steve Claydon between London, New York and Sheffield, this album benefits from the guest appearances of Richard Hawley (Pulp's guitarist), Rowan Oliver (Goldfrapp) and the legendary Californian producer Kim Fowley who sings (or rather speaks) on the amazing track Invasion of the Polaroid People. In this album, the English band shows once again how well they master their subject with an incredible and clever alchemy of melodies, chaotic rhythms and explosive sounds ranging from experimental music to old rock, pop, punk and electro. From the formidable single Take Me to Your Leader to the very IDM synthecisered PP Machine and the crazy Sheez Mine and Large Number, the new album of these little geniuses can be listened at again and again, it will endlessly turn your head.
Renaud Martin |
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Arbol
[Indus Sonica/Rocket Girl]
Even though they're classified under the reference "inso 002", Arbol is Indus Sonica's first release, the new electronic division of the English label Rocket Girl. This is the new project of Spain's Miguel Marin, former drummer of Piano Magic and if the first track of the album, Bikes and Kaoss appeals to us with its electronic rhythm, it's really the only one to be different from the usual Piano Magic atmosphere... The beautiful voice of Suzy Mangion follows perfectly the alto of James Topham on the charming Raquel. Shall we point out that these two, just like Paul Tornbohm (bass guitar) and John Cheves (melodica), were also part of Piano Magic? After these two first tracks, several instrumentals half electronic, half acoustic follow in an always very cinematic ambience like on Rings For You which brings to mind from the very first notes of... Glen Johnson's own band. A few sang tracks appear again at the end of the album, one of them marrying again the winning duo voice/alto like on Raquel associated with a piano sound which already did marvels in... the other band. You'll notice some references to a French southern town, two of the tracks are called Once n Marseille and Some Pieces Left In Marseille. Pleasant and relaxing, just like a... Piano Magic album.
Carole Jay |
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Defiance
[Accession Records]
This might be the record of the year for electro fans. Assemblage 23's third album is a real success, a proof of the band's evolution and a following through of the first two albums. All ten tracks of "Defiance" are gems with various sounds and rhythms, nearly made timeless by the more and more humane and personal voice of Tom Shear. Beyond hits that will raise the dead like Opened and Drive (real synthetic ballads on the future's motorways), the American multi-instrumentist shows the range of his musical abilities on a few slow compositions like the very pop Lullaby and Horizon, track of the year, a kind of floating digest of Depeche Mode and Puppy's genius. A magical album, futuristic and audacious like the single Document, a difficult challenge for those who would like to do better. An urgent acquisition indeed.
Stéphane Colombet |
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| Chris De Luca And Peabird | |
Deadly Wiz Da Disko
[!K7]
When Chris De Luca, the first half of the German duet Funkstörung, gets together with Peabird, you can expect the best while dreading the worse. If the former is brilliant when associated with Mickael Fakesch, the second is often flirting with a stodgy kind of rap at the limit of hip-hop and electronic music. In the end, this meeting is more profitable to Chris De Luca. "Deadly Wiz Da Disko" is finally a kind of enriched Funkstörung, groovier, bolder, less cold but just as precise. This is the perfect fusion of two different worlds. The construction of these tracks are sometimes brilliant and Peabird's vocal raids are completely bearable.
Christophe Labussière |
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Love Is Blind
[Accession Records]
Three years after the stunning compilation "Time Again", who saw the best of the European remixers make electro-dancefloor hits with their material, the American members of Claire Voyant come back to a more traditional female vocal-guitar-bass guitar-drum formula. Unfortunately, their style is always desperately squeaky clean and flabby, their crystal clear ballads and affected cooing get bogged in a grey uniformity and quickly become really boring. The rare moments of grace in this faked idyllic scenery are Silence and Not Like Me, but even that doesn't save the album from deep boredom. We expected a bit more from a band which electronic remixes on "Time Again" made us see their music at its best...
Stéphane Leguay |
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Gothic
The Arbitrary Width Of Shadows
[Projekt]
Always keen on compilations, Projekt gives us not one but two new collections of the best of their team: "Gothic" and "Arbitrary Width Of Shadows". Despite its name, "Gothic" doesn't deviate from the label's trademark romantic-atmospheric line. Indeed, after a (magnificent) goth start by Audra, this sampler floats in the same troubled waters that Black Tape For A Blue Girl, Lycia an Lovespirals got us accustomed to. Yet, the style is not uniformed here, quite on the contrary, from the acoustic guitars of Unto Ashes and Thanatos to the luminous gothic of This Ascension and Rajna's Himalayan trances or Voltaire's gypsy pas de deux, this compilation runs smoothly through a quiet and melancholic atmosphere. As you don't change a winning team, Sam Rosenthal (the label's guru) puts almost the same one on "The Arbitrary Width Of Shadows". The "get high" parts of this album are left to the ambient magicians, Steve Roach, Alio Die and Black Tape For A Blue Girl while the guitars' parts go to Mira, Audra and Mors Syphilitica (on a magnificent The Hue of Longing). A bit of piano here (Unto Ashes), a touch of percussion there (Peter Ulrich from late Dead Can Dance), and let's not forget the "vampire" country music of the very surprising Voltaire, all adding subtle variations to this album which finally is just as interesting as the first one. This two pleasant compilations are more aimed at the novices than at the regulars of Projekt, a label more and more diverse and creative in its romantic politics.
Stéphane Leguay |
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Conjure One
[Nettwerk]
Let's reassure the fans of the Canadian duo Delerium, their musical trip is far from over. Rhys Fulber is nevertheless on his own this time at the head of his computers to offer us an album of universal music, a vast medley of oriental and occidental inspirations, a blending of nature and technology. Less techno and more pop than Delerium, Conjure One is the wise and commercial side of the late founder member of Front Line Assembly and gifted producer of Fear Factory and of the last Paradise Lost album. After Silence, Delerium's worldwide hit, Rhys Fulber is probably looking again for the taste of success. To this end, he took on his side some old pop crocodiles like the famous Billy Steinberg (who wrote Madonna's Like a Virgin) or the little known... Sinéad O'Connor (on the magnificent Tears From the Moon). The result is a technically perfect album, even if a bit late, it surfs on the world/techno fusion wave. The commercial side is so obvious that you'll sometime think of Enigma or Deep Forest. Nevertheless, Manic Star is by itself the reason why you should listen to this album... waiting for the next Delerium's album.
Stéphane Colombet |
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Apparitions
[Ad Noiseam]
Cordell Klier is a musician with numerous side projects. Monstrare, Of, Vedisni and Kreptkrept are some of the numerous pseudonyms (there are more than twenty) used by this American to broadcast his music, or rather his different styles of music, which range from dark ambient, ritual indus to rhythmic noise and clicks & cuts. "Apparitions", the first album under his own name, displays, at any rate, a real musical identity, so much so that the thirteen tracks (none has titles) on it seem to make one. Built from clicks & cuts and very dark ambient sound bands, the compositions on this record are sometimes adorned with remote voices that sound like ghostlike apparitions. You sometimes feel like you're spying on some spiritualist trying to find minute soul particles in a radio or television set... Some of the sounds' elements mentioned earlier can be found in the musician prior works, like Monstrare or Vedisni, but the addition of abstract and minute sounds give this album an even stranger dimension reminiscent of the atmosphere of some of Asmus Tietchens' compositions. The common trait of Cordell Klier's music is variety, gloom and its difference and that's how this album is half way between Mille Plateaux and Cold Meat Industry's productions.
Carole Jay |
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Junctions
[Hymen/Mad Monkey]
"Gone West", Dead Hollywood Stars' first album released in 2000, had intrigued and seduced with its audacious mix of electronica and folk music. Unfairly under-promoted, this subtle UFO, who's got two already available tracks on the "Wagon Of Miracles" maxi, is reissued in a CD bonus format of a limited "Junctions" edition, the new fascinating release of the magical trio, Dead Hollywood Stars. Under this curious name are three exceptional people: John N. Sellekaers (Xingu Hill, Urawa, Ambre, Snog), Hervé Thomas (Fragile, Hint) and C-Drick Fermont (Ambre, Ammo). "Junctions" follows the "Gone West" line with more sound experimentation and textures' mix. Unprecedented crossover of blues (The Pure Voice and Back From Exile), of a deceptively groovy Black Lung (In The Abbey of the Psalms), of Megaptera (Noctuary) and of Front Line Assembly (Last Train To Aldebaran), we could easily classify this future classic with an Amon Tobin's or imagine it as the next Lynch's soundtrack, one of the track, Suburban Mystery, reminding us of the Twin Peaks soundtrack. Even if this album has an easy approach, it'll be better to let oneself carried by numerous colours of "Junctions" (you can easily go on a same track from a happy or tribal ambience -Singapore Sling- to colder spheres -Triangulating the Deamon or The Crying Indian-) and discover the richness of these fussy compositions that make of "Junctions" a precious and necessary album.
Catherine Fagnot |
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Scorpio Rising
[Subdivision]
"Scorpio Rising" was the title of the 60's film directed by Kenneth Anger and it is now the name of Richard Fearless and Tim Holmes' (a.k.a. Death In Vegas) album. Applying the well known concept of having more or less prestigious guest vocals, you'll find here the Indian violin player Subramaniam (a local star who worked for George Harrison and Ravi Shankar in the 70's), Dot Allison, Hope Sandoval (ex-Mazzy Star), Nicola Kuperu (from Adult), Paul Weller and the irritating Liam Gallagher. Sprinkled with Indian sounds and in the whole more rock like than the prior album, "Scorpio Rising" sounds a bit too much like an uneven compilation: from the dancefloor new-wave hit (the excellent first single Hands Around My Throat) to rock songs a bit too plain (Scorpio Rising, So You Say You Lost Your Baby) and the very well done ambient and steamy Diving Horses, it's hard to find a real coherence here. Fortunately, the album ends with a great Help Yourself, a 12 minutes epic and progressive track enlightened by L. Subramaniam 's violin and Hope Sandoval's voice.
Renaud Martin |
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| The Future Sound Of London | |
Amorphous Androgynous The Isness
[Artful]
The Future Of London was a unique band. Their music was coming from the depth of universe, or rather from the depth of mind. One could find peace, mystery, escape, sometimes energy, the band had real followers behind them.
Alas, what happened to this light delicacy, what happened to these strokes genius we had got accustomed to? Not much, just some blessed remnants. This album is a mix of the worse with the barely acceptable and only offers one good track, Elysian Feels, in the line of "Dead Cities". Let's also accept The Mellow Hippo Disco Show because it manages to surprise the listener: the vocal (yes a real vocal which takes up all the musical space) hones our curiosity, this track could very well be a 70's psychedelic hit. The 70's, which precisely are badly ingrained here like in Osho and its wah-wah guitar reminding Shaft. Smells of patchouli in every corner of the CD: all is at lost! Here an unbearable flute (on The Galaxial Pharmaceutical), there a sitar backed up by an affected and nasal vocal, there again a banjo and ukulele on Her Tongue Is Like a Jellyfish. It's no use going on, the listener bathes in a sad new hindu flower power, even if we force ourselves we could select some pleasant passages, like High Tide On the Sea of Flesh with a typical Oasis vocal backed by trumpet a la Boo Radleys.
The big awaited return of The Future Of London has just turned sour.
Frédéric Thébault |
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Presents Jackie Cane
[Sony/Small]
After switching in three albums from a brilliant and delicate trip hop (with the excellent "A New Stereophonic Sound Spectacular" released under the name Hoover) to the sweeter pop of the next two albums "Blue Wonder Powder Milk" and "The Magnificent Tree", the Belgian band comes back with "Hooverphonic Presents Jackie Cane", a conceptual album telling the rise and fall of an imaginary American singer of the 60's called Jackie Cane (who already featured in "the Magnificent Tree"). Once more the band's sound changes: slushy vocals from a brilliant Geike Arnaert, brass, violins and electronic sounds, each track has its own theme and atmosphere. Between pop, trip-hop, musicals and movie soundtracks (how not to think of Goldfrapp on the track One), this record cleverly mixes several styles in a charming old fashioned ambience which will bring you back a decade from now.
Renaud Martin |
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Karaoke A Capella
[Active Suspension]
"Karaoke A Capella" is unquestionably a U.F.O. on the electronica scene. This record breathes, laughs, thinks, sparkles, teems with shrewd sounds and harbours plenty of crafty ideas. Hypo dipped out of many talents and energies (O.lamm, Ddamage, Sawako, Reiko Underwater, Michiko Kusaki, Sonia Cordier the cellist of Encre...) to offer us something really new and surprising. A mix of reminiscences and creativity on 18 exciting tracks loaded with moods, humour and references; a precious collection with curious but playful arrangements. One often smiles but also absent-mindedly hums on this messy but deep electronica made in France. The success of this album holds in its homogeneity and easy access; "Karaoke A Capella" will seduce the most reticent of listeners and will convince the fussiest. An acute sense of melody and efficiency allows Hypo to assert himself as a new reference one year after his début album "Kotva", a less ambitious sketch released on the English label Spymania (which also had Squarepusher...).
Christophe Labussière |
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Market Led
[Mute/Labels]
What a disappointment for all Kraftwerk's fans who welcomed four years ago the English duo of Komputer like a worthy heir of the grand Dusseldorf quatuor. Their first album, "The World Of Tomorrow", was particularly successful as the vocals' candour mixed to old analogic sounds and brought novelty to our ears well before the 80's revival. Unfortunately on this second album, Komputer completely changed direction to join the ethereal - and totally boring - spheres of artists such as Matmos Pole, Farben or Oval. The idea of pop has completely vanished alongside with the vocals to the benefit of a listless experimental electronic (and not even creative) music. Doubtlessly, they'll have to come back to the first album's original inspiration to confirm their initial talent, for wishing to prove their originality, Komputer fell into mediocrity and maybe soon into oblivion.
Stéphane Colombet |
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Lover Of Sin
[Candlelight]
Let's start with saying first that Lover Of Sin is not the name of Christian Death's new album, even if the Candlelight label has done its best to emphasize the confusion (artwork, logo...). Obviously sold as one of Valor's work who, for once, would have stayed in the shadow, Lover Of Sin is actually Maitri's, the band's bass player, side-project. We knew her as an amateur of all kind of screams, and the least you could say is she certainly enjoyed herself on this album. Which is not so bad... Because for the listener who doesn't like death/black metal cavalcades, the audition might be painful! Titles foolishly gross (not anybody can be Cradle Of Filth...), totally uninteresting compositions, dodgy gothic arrangements, cheap provocation, ugly cover, everything breathes of mediocrity and lack of inspiration... As for the production, it suffers from a chronic lack of power and clarity, which is yet a necessary condition to practise extreme metal. Let's hope that this grotesque farce hasn't influenced Christian Death's next album, "Ten Reasons For Suicide". If Rozz Wiliams saw that...
Stéphane Leguay |
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Data Sensitive
Be-at Sound A
[Parametric]
Though a resident member of Von Magnet, it's once again under the name of Mimetic that Jerôme Soudan resumes his solo quest for the perfect sound and click. The against nature synthesis and almost academic representation of all the subtleties existing in electronic music, at times symphonic, at times ambient, at times saturated, but always influenced by industrial roots, the Mimetic project has, over its four albums, offered with each production a new perception in an ever-evolving environment. This double CD with its elaborate packaging is a perfect guest for the young Parametric label, already noticed a few months ago with the release of Mlada Fronta's "Oxydes". Initially thought as two different projects, the two CDs are best listened as two separate items. The first one, "Data Sensitive" is a kind of soundtrack (noises, rubbings, voices) totally based on ambience and senses. The second one, "Be-at Sound A" is more about rhythms and saturations, a more linear but terribly efficient piece. One is left breathless by these comings and goings, these hybrid mixes, lyrical voice, dismantled rhythms and bewitching sound layers. This is navigation in troubled waters, the unlikely gathering of Front Line Assembly's trademark cybernetic ambiences and Autechre's more vicious atmospheres.
Christophe Labussière |
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Inferno
[Candyland/Warner]
"Inferno is a mirror", as explains Peter Spilles, leader of the German cult band. This new album, the first stage in a trilogy also including two mini-LP released at the end of October and November, looks like a reflection: first a reflection on the life of each and every human being with its hopes and various emotions; then a reflection upon the history of this band who's been providing us in each of its releases over the last 11 years with true dark electro lyric masterpieces. "Inferno" features fourteen tracks as rich and diverse as the CD's booklet -which contains both German and English lyrics-, reminding us of the band's first and last albums as to the quality of their melodies and sounds. The first tracks overstep the traditional verse/chorus format to offer an intoxicating blend of progressive harmonies whereas the album's second part is more accessible with real songs that are more easily remembered. Peter Spilles' voice hasn't aged one bit and the global sound scenery stays very clean gothic. "Inferno" is an album that will mature in years to come as its very substance was crafted to aim at timelessness. Just one regret though: there is no real hit, just a string of pleasant but not really exciting compositions. May the expression of reason be the Pitchies' own hell?
Stéphane Colombet |
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In Tenebris
[Rosa Crux Production]
Each of Rosa Crux's new musical or stage production is a real gem. Be it with sounds or images, it seems that the pagan world of this Rouen-based band can only emerge through massive, protean productions. This duet (formerly a trio before the departure of cellist Nathalie) of experienced musicians and handymen equipped with surrealist instruments is now back with a third album which title sounds like an invocation: "In Tenebris"... Dark, chanting and mechanical, Rosa Crux's melodies stay still in their structures, loosing on almost mathematical rhythms, nine new compositions of iron and fire. With an impressive opening, Adorasti, a funeral epilogue, Salve Crux and powerful ritual marches measured by obsessing robot-drums (Sacrum), the band's fascinating and singular formula unfolds its most effective mechanisms for a new infernal journey. Gothic bells, heart-rending guitar, great organs, intoned vocals, sacred (Arcum) or sacrificial music (Omnes Qui Descendunt), it's all tinted with medieval obscurantism, cryptic signs and ancestral liturgy. An extraordinarily evocative potential through which Rosa Crux manages to sketch the indescribable. Darkness.
Stéphane Leguay |
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Zoomer
[City Slang/Labels]
Quite apart from the usually strict electronica format, Dirk Dresselhaus offers with this album a rather sour pop reading of the electronic music of his beginnings. His debut album, "Moister", released in 1998, had been particularly welcomed then, and his recent mini-EP had also made an impression with a funny remake of the Smiths' There Is a Light That Never Goes Out renamed The Light 3000. It was at this occasion and for the first time that Dirk tried to do the vocals. Today the "pop" opening is even more obvious, more than half the album is sung and the tracks are built for this purpose. Despite the presence of a totally out-of-place and rather painful rap track, Turn On, "cutting" the album in two, the whole is a respectable piece full of rather interesting sounds and "DIY", granular clicks and scratches. A successful union in which Schneider TM cosily settles. A good surprise indeed.
Christophe Labussière |
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( )
[Pias]
Each of Sigur Ros' album is singular. Sigur Ros is singular. Out of currents, out of labels, this Icelandic band whose name we've yet slowly got accustomed to, has imposed its inimitable musical style. And this third album, soberly entitled "()", is no exception. It's all about letting oneself go at the risk of losing one's way in the beauty of this sublime music. The proof is in the absolute nakedness of the packaging, the band having even refused to name any of the tracks as if they wanted to leave the listener on their own and invite them to an almost mystic meditation. Falsely languid, terribly melancholic, the album's compositions qualify as close to post rock perfection, since it's the only way one could possibly label them. Even simpler than "Ag¾tis Byrjun" (2000), "()" is deprived of the sound experimentations of "Von" (1997). With this beautifully voluptuous record, Sigur Ros display their perfect mastering of the use of slowness (echoes of Low on track 2, also called Fyrsta according to the band's gig set lists, or on track 5, çlafoss) and crescendo intensity that Godspeed You! Black Emperor would not disown (see track 6 E-Bow- and 7 Dau>alagi>). Already an album to insert in the classics section.
Catherine Fagnot |
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The Richest Man In Babylon
[Barclay]
Thievery Corporation is a Washington duo founded in 1995 by Rob Garza and Eric Hilton, two American world music and DIY electronic enthusiasts. After "Sounds From The Thievery Hi Fi", an excellent first album of underground down-tempo, the band was noticed in Europe and signed their next albums on the mythical label 4AD (then in a renewal period). This new album, "The Richest Man In Babylon", is in the line of their precedent work: a kind of classy lounge music full of numerous influences such as jazz, electro, dub, reggae, soul or traditional latin music, Brazilian, Persian or Indian too. The whole sounds as an ambient chill-out album, but some tracks, like Heaven's Gonna Burn Your Eyes (sung by Iceland's very own Emiliana Torrini) or the typically dub Outernationalist, stand out from the rest. An international, pleasant and soothing record, "The Richest Man In Babylon" is the ideal album to rest your ears and mind in-between other rougher stuff.
Renaud Martin |
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This record will delight all Mission fans. But are there any left? "Aural Delight" offers rarities, B-sides and new tracks... actually nothing really exciting apart for two cover songs, Never Let Me Down by Depeche Mode and the classic Can't Help Falling In Love With You. The rest is anecdotic like the very Cure-like Melt or the video to Shine Like the Stars. The perfect opportunity to remember that before falling in this mess, The Mission was actually a great band. The limited edition includes four bonus acoustic tracks.
"Children Of The Black Sun" offers 30 minutes less daring than usual, showing the more appeased side of Boyd Rice's work. This album will delight those keen on disquieting atmospheres (splendid on this record), who safely manage to enter the NON hermetic world. The album goes with a DVD (with no video) which repeats every title of the album and will allow the hi-tech and technology enthusiasts, equipped with an audio 5:1 installation, to surround themselves with a sound universe made especially for this format.
Four years after "Actual Sounds And Voices", Jack Dangers releases a new album "R.U.O.K.?". If the sound is the same as Meat Beat Manifesto's, it's nevertheless more refined, almost totally ridden of its mannerism and of Jack's taste for broken rhythms, dark and lacerated scratches, anumerous samples or often political lyrics. Maybe the presence of Z-Trip or of Orb's Alex Patterson, both featured on this album, is responsible for this change, although they bring nothing exciting to "R.U.O.K.?".
The French indus-metal electro bomb of the year is undoubtedly Punish Yourself with "Warp 99". Like their fiery concerts (there's a video clip of one on the CD), the album offers an incredibly mastered and totally irresistible crossover.
Sub-Divisionand their album "Trauma" draw us in gloomier , heavier, metal and dark ambiences. If the influences are digested and the result is as rich as it is homogeneous, nevertheless, the exercise sounds a approximate at times, especially because of the vocals.
The greater surprise of the month is the re-appearance of IDLO (Ivanovitch Dans L'Ombre) who almost ten years after an amazing tape series, release their first CD "Trans Level", a kind of old-school electro which lacks none of the necessary ingredients... but which unfortunately proves to be quite boring.
Christophe Labussière
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