 | |
The Cure
[Polydor]
2004 is undeniably a good vintage. Once again, Robert Smith's declarations, preceeding the release of this album about how he wanted it to sound and to be produced, were mere psychotic ramblings. Indeed, Robert's insistence worried his fans, and in the end, the "more heavy" and "more hardcore" is just "more Cure-like than ever". The band starts with a clean slate (forgetting these last twelve years with the missed "Wild Mood Swings" and the debatable "Bloodflowers"), and even if they aren't in the same line as "Wish" either, they manage to offer us an album with the best of The Cure's sound. We can find all the characteristics that made the band's identity, the flayed vocal (often surly like on Us or Them and Never), an obsessing bass, some apparently obvious melodies and always complex compositions. But, for the first time in ages, the tracks are built in a very classic way, they don't have endless tracks (except for The Promise, which deserves it), there aren't any superfluous effects, just a "simple" production (that's why it's good) which leaves room for the melody and the emotion. Before Three, Taking Off, alt.end, every new audition will get you more attached to these tracks, you'll be surprised by the strength of the lyrics (the mourning on Going Nowhere, like an echo to The Promise, which treats the same theme but on a different angle, with more anger and frustration), and from the first listening, you realise that the whole is good. No more boring tracks, nor rhythm drops or missed effects, this album is homogeneous and more accessible than any other album of the band. The chaotic years, when we were more excited by the release of a live album or a compilation than by a new production of the band, are over. Never any album of The Cure had a better title, the name of a band who still fascinates us twenty five years on.
Christophe Labussière |
|
| |
Kafarnaüm
[Alfa Matrix]
The fourth album of the Belgian duo made of Benoît Blanchard and Sébastien Dolimont, our colleagues from the Side-Line fanzine, "Kafarnaüm" is probably their more coherent album (despite its title...) and the more mature to this day. It takes times to do something good and the last opus of the band, "Sons Palliatifs", was released in 2001. This new album is like an identity quest, probably in order to create a kind of speedy and cold trance-indus version of an European Delerium. Except for some instrumental tracks, somewhere between experimental indus and drum'n'bass (like the dispensable Chaos-Society, Chaos-Underworld, etc.), all the tracks of "Kafarnaüm" are paradoxically homogeneous, excelling in the very fast and domineering feminine trance-indus with future-pop tones, not very common samples and researched rhythmics. We particularly liked the 242-sounding Hurting You Is Good for Me (between "Front by Front" and "Off"). We also liked the samples in French like "Pour moi, c'est l'enfer" ("This is like Hell to me") on a VNV Nation background, with Within the Endless World. You'll be delighted by the bewitching Psychosomatic Complaints, with its aerial and pugnacious female vocal. And finally, we highly recommend the already cult cover of Niagara Pendant que les chants brûlent, a kind of Alice in Front Line Assembly land: that could introduce the indus-electro at the Eurovision Song Contest! Well done gentlemen.
Stéphane Colombet |
|
| |
Go Pets Go
[Cos Records]
Each new album of DAT Politics brings its lot of deliriums and discoveries. As the fifth album, "Go Pets Go" follows this rule and compiles at the same time the dissonant and melodic past of the band all the while innovating towards a lless hermetic style. Always naive and childlike, but more sophisticated than they appear at first, the trio's compositions evolve between crystal clear sounds and wilful muddle. As for the discoveries mentioned above, there are loads of them! For instance, Yha-Hoo Tuning, the ninth track made of samples of the public's voices and clappings, or the last track, Credits, which as the title indicates, is full of acknowledgments and enumerates the names of the people who worked on this record. An almost all-vocal track! Throughout the evolution of the band, the introduction of voices in the compositions seem more assumed, and just like on the previous album, the guys from Lilles offer us a song in French, Si, a meaningless exercise of alliteration. As special guests, Nathan Michel and Kristin Erickson (alias Kevin Blechdom) offer their voices on this album which logically and pleasantly follows "Plugs Plus".
Carole Jay |
|
| |
Time We Spent Together
[Noise Digger/Chronowax]
After the two first conclusive tries, the four tracks "Sons/Silences" (2001) and the EP "Someday If I Want to" (2002), a lot of people expected from Exsonvaldes a first album that would make these Parisians compete with the best of the Belgian or Anglo-Saxon scene. Well, it's done with this "Time We Spent Together" that will seduce you from the begining (I Don't Want to Drive) as it reveals itself as the little gem we expected. Between aerial and melancholic pop (it's hard to resist to tracks like Going Away, Do You Know What Is Like?, All I Have) and more rock tracks (Time We Spent Together and its post-rock sounds), the Parisians managed to created an elegant and melancholic album, in which the English vocal of Simon, works marvelously well. This album can be listened at time and time again, let's hope it'll bring to this band the success they deserve.
Renaud Martin |
|
| |
Between the Devil...
[Synthetic Symphony/SPV]
As the legend goes, Ralf and Florian of Kraftwerk would be testing the hypnotic potential of their new compositions while driving their cars on the motorway. Each to his way; the DJ Terence Fixmer has had plenty of time to perfect his acoustic aesthetics with the clubbers' public. His sets are a tribute to the body music's pioneers and contributed to the renewal of this genre, all the while being inspired by a kind of Northen and Belgian heritage. Nobody else has manage to mix the Klinik's icy minimalism and Crash Course in Science's lewd laments. Ask Laurent Garnier if he'd dare putting Warm Leatherette of The Normal during one of his set at the Rex Club. To Terence, there's nothing better to make people dance than putting side by side binary rhythms and dirty analogic sounds. Like for every DJ, the temptation to create his own record were great. This amazing collaboration fulfils a kid's dream, the chance for the Frenchman to find his idol, Douglas McCarthy, the excellent bawling singer of Nitzer Ebb, and to convince him to sing again, something he hadn't done in a long time if we except the tracks he did with his friend Alan Wilder of Recoil. The result is quite attractive, we feel that the "performer" enjoyed himself in this high in testosterone project. His overflowing energy, his amazing vocal range and his tormented literary universe gave Fixmer's abrupt techno a kind of raw sensuality. A savagery marked by powerful rises of sequences widely inspired by the works of D.A.F. But in the end, we get bored by the linearity (weakness?) of some of the structures which spoils three or four tracks of the album. We also regret not to be able to enjoy this album in the right place, that is to say in a club in Lilles, surrounded by body-builders in uniforms who can't wait for a 2004 version parody of Let Your Body Learn to finally express their virility which was restrained until now by a decade of sterile techno dance.
Anthony Augendre |
|
| |
Magic
[Prikosnovénie]
To say that Lena and Olga, the two voices of the Ukrainian band, Flëur, are "Russian dolls" would be a shameful prejudice! Yet, that's what we thought while listening to the delicate and sharp voices of these two young women on their second album which sounds like Slavic folklore to us. With an omnipresent acoustic guitar in the background and a flute or a very lively violin surrounding the caressing and bright vocals. From the Baltic Sea to the Ural, from the Permafrost and the Taïga to the Black Sea, the trip is marvellous and romantic. The lyrical poetry coming from "Magic" makes each song resembles a very touching dream-like painting. There's no language barriers (even if the duo sings in Russian), the voices and the sounds are enough in themselves to give you the impressions and feelings that go well beyond the meaning of the words. It's a kind of picture and space record. Anyway, a nice odyssey through Russia, a contrasted country, so close and yet so remote. Flëur offers us some answers about this still enigmatic country. It's up to us to open the door...
Stéphane Leguay |
|
| |
Synthese
[Parametric]
Haïku opens the new 2004 collection of Parametric with a personal aesthetic and commercial politics. Indeed, the label specialised in experimental electronic musics, launches a series of albums, dressed of brushed metal (a reference to Chain Reaction?). Each production has got multimedia tracks and is sold for a price under 10 Euros, the idea is to motivate the web surfers to buy nice records/objects.
As for Haïku, they've got the right name. Vivien Cabrol proposes her acoustic reading of the haïkus, these little Japanese poems which are impregnated with the 17th century idea of simplicity. In this poetic form, strong emotions must be expressed with an economy of words (no more than seventeen Chinese ideograms). If, at first, Haïku's electronica seems austere, a more attentive audition reveals the very essence of this project's artistic goal. Haïku evolves in an abstract way where each sound range could be synthesized as circles, simple and clear lines like the grooves the Zen monks draw on the ground of a sand garden. We're far from the sinusoid deliriums of Rioji Ikeda, or even from the roughness of Pan Sonic because "Synthese" is the work of a Westerner who has digested the works of generous musicians such as Boards of Canada or Biosphere, to only mention the most emblematic creators of the new Ambient school.
Anthony Augendre |
|
| |
Random Veneziano
[Active Suspension]
In his previous albums, Hypo already made himself noticed because of the originality of his experimental electronica, without being too cerebral. And indeed, it's difficult to compare Hypo with anybody else. Always creating new stuff, roaming randomly among the sound collages of different styles, and all that with a sense of humour, Hypo is really apart. "Random Veneziano" is a kind of vast zapping of apparently chaotic frequencies behind which you can find melodies that coordinate the whole. This album is also the result of collaborations between Anthony Keyeux (Hypo) and Momus, Simon Wess (Pierre Crube), Mou Lips, Emmanuelle de Héricourt (videofilm maker and musician), O.Lamm, and the Japanese singer Sawako, who was already a guest on Hypo previous album. The whole is mixed with Norscq (who also participates to the projects The Atlas Project and The Grief).
So, either you'll get along this poetic and swarming record, or you'll hate it. There's no middle way in this avant-garde area, that the creator himself describes as "a real circus" in which he attempted: "matings against nature For instance, imagine DCD fucking Joe Dassin"!
Laure Cornaire |
|
| |
Kiss + Swallow
[Recall]
Between two albums of the Sneaker Pimps, Chris Corner, lead singer of the band, allows himself a solo project under the name of I Am X. Forsaking the bitter-sweet and misty trip-hop atmospheres, he enjoys himself with light compositions which concern our libido (listen to the lyrics) as much as our dancing skills because some of the tracks are quite energetic. This electronic pop project has got catchy melodies, a glamour state of mind, a bit of nostalgia of the 80s and a smooth production. That should reconcile the fans of Placebo, of Larry Tee and of synthpop! Chris Corner got the help of Sue Denim, one of the two members of Robots in Disguise, who appears as a vocal guest on several tracks. That's not extraordinary when you know that our man is the producer of Robots in Disguise!
Even as a featherweight in the discotheque, I Am X has, nevertheless, some trumps in his game, like the beautiful voice of Chris Corner who already made the success of the Sneaker Pimps after the departure of their singer on the second album of the band. Anyway, this record is easy and fresh like a fruity sweet...
Laure Cornaire |
|
| |
Collection Version 2.0: Chronology
[Carlos Monte Records]
You must have read, here and there, that the band from Vancouver composed of Don Gordon of Numb, Kevin Crompton (alias Cevin Key of Skinny Puppy), David Ogilvie and Greeg Reely, sound engineers of Skinny Puppy and Front Line Assembly, was created at the begining of the 80s around Image In Vogue. The reputation of the band never went beyond the North American frontiers, and is, like their compatriots Rational Youth, a kind of Graal for the fans of techno-pop, like the Swedish band, Energy Records who says they influenced them. Until the release this year of an anthology soberly entitled "Chronology", it was impossible to find any of their LPs, or to gather any information. So, the whole story of this neo-romantic band is compiled here with sound and pictures. The inside book, made by Steven R. Gilmore, has a detailed biography and a photo album. You'll learn there that Images In Vogue, as fans of post-punk, opened the Canadian concerts of Roxy Music and Depeche Mode. The first audition of this collection of local hits is striking; all the crooners of the time seem to have been invited on the emphatic vocal. We think we recognized John Foxx of Ultravox in the fog, Gary Numan on a glacier, Steve Strange of Visage mounting a bear, David Sylvian in the Blizzard. It's only when you hear the American accent that the illusion is shattered. This isn't the works of the Blitz's residents in London in 1979, it's the great Northern futurists, who share with their European colleagues, a taste for oblique synths, Berlin cabaret and the abstract design of the Stijl school. This "eighties remembrance" fills a strange gap. If you're still a fan of the industrial death disco, you'll have to pass the test of the flashy and a bit snobbish pop of Image In Vogue, in order to perfect your sociological and cultural knowledges of this movement.
Anthony Augendre |
|
| |
Re:Vision
[Metropolis]
The American duo, who started in 1993, offered us neat melodies with European sounds in their three previous albums. Now, it's the vocal that surprises us, it was tormented and it has become clearer on this mini-album (ten tracks though) which is released only two years after their real last album, "Nymphomatik", and so it's got more personality and intensity. We're reminded of the last epoch of Evil's Toy, and also, and above all, to the current Assemblage 23 (who remixes one of the tracks here, the excellent A Matter of Time). So, you'll find four very good new tracks and six new versions or remixes of older compositions. The whole is high in energy, you won't fall asleep... It maybe not original, but it's terribly efficient and refreshing for a worn down future pop EBM. It's hard to stay still while listening to the remix of Over by Iris or the remix of Flesh Menagerie by Funker Vogt. Let's hope that their next album will put in the light this discreet and talented duo.
Stéphane Colombet |
|
| |
1988-1997
[Divine Comedy]
As we sensed and wrote in one of our article last year, the compilation of Land's demos is now being released at Divine Comedy, just a few months after the release of the vinyl EP "Praha". Synthesizing during one hour the best of their first works, ("Empires at War", "Labyrinth", "Notre-Dame de Paris" and "Anger"), Land finally reveals a side of their story most of us didn't know yet. This is a music heavily branded by atmospheric echoes, or it's even sometimes totally cinematographic (A Kingdom Is Falling) where the abstract structures finely navigate between martial percussions, industtrial breaths and childish rounds. This compilation allows us to discover another side to Land; at a time where they still were a multi-members project who flirted with cold-wave (On the Mountain Peaks). Some compositions taken away either by a male or a female vocal, give a taste of youth to this yet sombre collection of souvenirs. As for Die Andere Hälfte des Himmels and Distances saturées, the two novelties which end "1988-1997", their sinister ritual and dark ambient tinsels made by Marc, who's the only leader here, announce the era of maturity and steadiness. This era will see the birth of the EP "Idi i Smotri" in 2001 and the excellent first album "Opuscule" in 2002.
Stéphane Leguay |
|
| |
The Whispering Wall
[ROIR]
In more than twenty years and almost three times as many records, the Legendary Pink Dots flirted with the sublime and sometimes the abyss, as now each of their new productions comes with a little fright: what side of their talent will they choose to express this time? It's a sad album they deliver here with "The Whispering Wall", on which Soft Toy plays a trick with a bass, an organ and some guitars. At the beginning of the second track, A Distant Summer, we find ourselves back where "All the King's Horses" ended in 2002, with even some more fragility. Fragile and sad, Edward Ka-Spel really is on the touching In Sickness and in Health which reminds of the melancholy of Cheating the Shadow that figured on their 1998 "Nemesis Online" album. He, who told us with confidence, that he recently realized that his band would never change the world as much as he's liked it to, would he only comfort himself to know how much his band has changed his fans' lives? Of course, Peek a Boo sounds like a bad joke, but The Divide follows the tradition of the long psyche-rock hallucinated-everyday-story, like the ones the singer improvises during concerts. The best of this album surely is the long and last track, made of the three songs Sunken Pleasure / Rising Pleasure / No Walls, No Strings where Edward affords himself a beautiful cold a capella moment, before being snatched by a wall of bagpipes from where whispers of new age sequences get out, close to the Silverman's solo efforts.
Bertrand Hamonou |
|
| |
Poppy Variations
[TEKA/Beta-Lactam Ring]
The Legendary Pink Dots' records now come out in sets, and this is the companion album to "The Whispering Wall" that these now Holland-based imagined to counterbalance the sadness of a claustrophobic album. In deep, though, "Poppy Variations" is as sad as his fake twin is, because it's all constructed around the memory of the feelings Edward Ka-Spel had when he learnt the death of princess Diana. Lighter than they're used to be, these compositions fortunately have nothing in common with the not very commendable hymn by Sir Elton John. The band even dares to get the head out of the studio on L'Oiseau rare, to have a look at the outside world, and then prefer to end the song in its own with blurred shapes and where sound waves don't look like the ones we know. This record would compare to their 2002 "Synesthesia", as it seems to be recorded with very few equipment, without any unnecessary track (The Equaliser, The Hot Breath on Your Neck, Personal Monster). Edward Ka-Spel's voice has never been so close to your ears, and despite some peculiar bagpipes ambiances (The Poppy Variations), once again, he manages to associate intimate melodies with very long tracks, born from the fusion of three or four other ones, solidified haphazardly. With its very nice and sober sleeve, this digipack maybe is the passport to their origins for this English band, as they ran away from England in the 80s, and today they surprisingly deliver an homage to one disappeared figure of "their" monarchy.
Bertrand Hamonou |
|
| |
Mélisse
[Prikosnovénie]
Following "Roi Lune", a very good first try, "Mélisse" states the come-back of Lys, alias Fred Chaplain, the big boss of the label Prikosnovénie. Just like the previous one, this album let Mother Nature take possession of the twelve new tracks, the birds' singings and the streams' splashing geting very well with the organic instrumentations (Tibetan bells, clarinets, guitars) you'll find all along "Mélisse". Some electronic rhythms come, here and there, to reinforce or replace the numerous percussions which are the background of the poems, often whispered in imaginary languages by GoR, Liz Van Dort (Faraway), Mihaela Repina (Pink'n'ruby) or even Fred Chaplain himself. This work on sounds and atmospheres is very homogeneous, it sometimes flirts with new-age, but never falls in bad tastes ambiences. Oneiric and disorienting, "Mélisse" looks like a nice aquarelle in which it feels good to dip one's melancholy to breathe Oriental fragrances and Mediterranean breezes. Between a pastel blue and a vermilion red, autumnal melancholy and shamanic trance, this immersion in elements and sensations is just as appeasing as exciting.
Stéphane Leguay |
|
| |
Houses of the Molé
[Sanctuary Records/Mayan]
"Already?!", that's what we said to ourselves at the release of Ministry's new opus. And that would be quite justified because the band isn't known for being in a hurry to release their productions. Yet, it's just over one year after the imposing "Animositisomina", that "Houses of the Molé" is now being released. Free from his endless drug problems, Al Jourgensen seems to have found a creative balance, despite the departure of his colleague, Paul Barker. You can feel his absence in the musical direction of the Texan Ministry, who took advantage of this situation to change his staff. Without Barker the dandy to stop his metal ambitions, Jourgensen created nine tracks full of spitting guitars (sampled, in solo, in rhythmics, in jackhammers...), making of this album a real fragmentation bomb, which reproduces some speed-trash plans we hadn't heard since the cavalcades of Jesus Built my Hotrod or TVII on "Psalm 69". And if the velocity of Warp City will remind you of Lard, it's quite obvious that "Houses of the Molé" tries to get close to this cult album released in 1992. No W with Bush Jr's speech is the following of N.W.O. on which we could hear Bush Sr., WTV is the following of TVII and Worthless remind us of Just One Fix. The analogy is done on purpose, and it even goes to the number of tracks (69) burned on the CD! So, is it a tribute to a glorious past or a simple plagiarism from a band lacking inspiration and references? Well, there's no need to go too far to find the answer. Ministry is faithful to itself, with its own sound, its violence and all this apocalyptic/white-trash universe, in which you can see all the excesses and the paradoxes of America. That's all. In the end, the result is an album just as less original than innovating, but so exciting with its brutality (the frenzied or the crushing one) and its efficiency that we wonder now, what else did we expect than this "Houses of the Molé" as it is. The adventurers of the sonic revolution will be disappointed, but the fans will love it.
Stéphane Leguay |
|
| |
Nouvelle Vague
[Peacefrog]
Nouvelle Vague, like its name implies, is a tribute to the new-wave, this musical genre that most of us know well. But, instead of doing an umpteenth and useless album of covers more sinister one than the other, Olivier Libaux (ex-Les Objets, among others) and Marc Collin (founder of the band Ollano, among others) tried to do something different. So, they first selected thirteen unavoidable tracks of this genre (like Joy Division, Depeche Mode, the Clash, P.I.L., The Cure, but also Sisters of Mercy, XTC, Modern English, Killing Joke). Then, they transformed them, adapting them to pop or bossa nova (!), and finally they made them sung by young singers. There are eight different voices here! At first, the result is quite surprising, and may disconcert some, because they're so remote from the original dark and cold ambiences. But, once you're used to it, you'll find them engaging, sensual and original, and you'll realise, throughout the listenings, that this isn't a betrayal, but a real tribute, cleverly done and with a real love for this genre we like so much.
Renaud Martin |
|
| |
Mass Murderer
[Divine Comedy]
This first opus of the trio from Lyons, Omnicore, is a new good surprise of the label Divine Comedy. Following the dreary drums of the always prolific dark-folk scene, this first album, "Mass Murderer" unwinds its warlike banners in the icy wind coming from Europe (we could have guessed), but without falling in the ambiguity displayed by some other formations of this genre. So, there are thirteen martial tracks, in which the ritual argue with the mechanical, for the hypnotical beats that shake Omnicore's heart. If we found some obvious influences, here and there (the shadow of Ordo Rosarius Equilibrio on Dying in Berlin or The Moon Lay Hidden Beneath A Cloud on Complices and Strong New World), we can't resist to the pleasure of being rocked by these dark cadences and these impious hymns. Shame about the terrible English accent of one of the two male voices which spoil the grandiloquent effect of some tracks. This is just but a small blemish in this well-conducted symphony by a band we should keep an eye on.
Stéphane Leguay |
|
| |
Kesto (234:48:4)
[Mute/Labels]
The announcement of the release of this quadruple album of Pan Sonic should have sharpened our curiosity, but it also worried us. Indeed, wouldn't the Finns abuse of the 234 minutes of these four CDs to launch themselves in inaccessible experimentations that would have drown their original concept in an excessive dimension? Fortunately, we find from the first CD, all the elements which characterize their unique sound: coldness, rhythm, relief and distortion. The process is apparently the same used since their begining, but this time, there's more energy. The accidents and reliefs so characteristic of their electronic are more present, more intense than ever. The coldness Pan Sonic got us used to, even if it's still present, is smoother. In a perfect logic, quiet moments alternate with more frantic tracks. The second CD follows the same line, but the tracks get simpler, less complex and vicious. On the third CD, wearing a headphone is compulsory, because the Finns carry us in an appeased ambient with some exquisite industrial glitches, a bit bruitist, offering 73 minutes of false quietude they master so well. As for the fourth CD, dedicated to Charlemagne Palestine, it offers a more arguable one hour long track, but that shouldn't prevent you from buying this incredibly addictive box.
Christophe Labussière |
|
| |
Maschinenmusik
Maschinenraum
[Alfa Matrix]
Anyone who ever dance on Electronic Body Music, the real thing, the one that makes you sweat hydrochloric acid and talks to your head all the while developing your muscles, must know Plastic Noise Experience. We're not talking about the foul trance-like you can hear in Parisian parties, nor the electro-clash, which is a cynical commercial revival of the worst moments of the 80s, but we're talking about the invention of the Front 242 and their gymnasts fans. Claus Kruse, the fashion model man of PNE, is from the second generation of the dancing cyborgs, a particularly efficient invader of discos. With his strong friends, Suicide Commando,:Wumpscut and Gin Devo (Vomito Negro), he's the kind of guy to sing his love for plastic things and mechanic elegance with his throaty voice, necessarily vocoded, which remind us of some crooners like Frank Tovey or Jean-Luc of Meyer (Prestigeobjekt). Throat clearing, articulation of agressive phonemes, squared structured songs and pugnacious melodies are the ingredients of this two super productions, the album "Maschinenmusik" and the copious EP "Maschinenraum". Here's my electro Prestigeobjek in your face, you can always reply with a bruitist Schlafmodus. This is a real pleasure for those who, full of the Germanic sternness cliches, still play with their robot in front of their mirror, dress with a red shirt and a black tie, and intensely live the Kraftwerk humour.
Anthony Augendre |
|
| |
Hidden Temple
[Holy Records]
Just like if they were coming from the Himalayan mountains, the French quartet, Rajna still goes on playing, after six years, their deeply transcendental music with their own know-how. Even if this "Hidden Temple" seems to be forsaking, for a while, the Ganges' banks, it's for the sake of another sacred river, the Nile. So, the mysteries of the ancient Egypt is the inspiration for their new opus, but don't be mistaken: the ritual melodies and the eastern instrumentation are well anchored between India and Tibet. What more could we say, except that Rajna doesn't innovate its formula of fine percussions and dulcimers, but it still hits the bull's eye and carries us away on a sumptuous travel crossing steppes, forests and mountains. Maybe a bit more varied in its approach and its structure, "Hidden Temple" offers us some sublime ethno-heavenly gems like Dancing With Divinities or Odyssey, the soft envelope of the orchestration leaves, once again, the space for Jeanne's vocals. A magical fifth album which cuts back time and space in one dimension, one entity, one emotion. A meditative mist, a cinematic haze which is quite difficult to leave...
Let's also mention that "HiddenTemple" offers a second CD, "From the Ashes", which regroups novelties and alternative versions recorded between 1998 and 2002.
Stéphane Leguay |
|
| |
Earlier/Later
[The Grey Area/Mute]
The route taken by the label Mute is irremediably linked to the personality of its founder, Daniel Miller, and his immoderate love of extra-ordinary artists. In order to make relive the works of the label's pioneers like Can, Throbbing Gristle and Deutsche Amerikanische Freundschaft, Mute created "The Grey Area", a sub-division which kind of archives the international industrial culture. Most of the time, this "Grey Area" was only offering digitized re-issues of old LPs. But here's something new with this anthology; the demos tapes of Richard H Kirk of Cabaret Voltaire, dating from 1974 to 1989. The old bear from Sheffield states that he never played these tracks to anybody, even not his old friend, the singer Stephen Mallinder. By listening closely, you can hear the rubbings of the magnetic tapes, which haven't received any post-production treatments before becoming an amazingly mature double CD. The first part is made of a mix of icy funk, close to the "Black Jesus Voice" sessions. The socio-political themes dear to the mentor Kirk are already present (war, dictature, weapons, drugs...) and they're underlined by obsessing rhythmics collages. The second part dating of 1974 is a whole of primitive electronic pieces prefiguring the sound of the 80s' industrial music, as well as the approach of the current techno-minimalist generation. It's also, according to Kirk, the kind of album he would like to produce now. Even some avant-garde people look back in the past, and they're right to do so.
Anthony Augendre |
|
| |
Let's Eat
[Cold Meat Industry]
Eight years after its first try "Lupus in Fabula", Sanctum is finally back to satisfy the hunger of its fans because the live album, "New York City Blaster" released in 1999 hardly appeased their (rightful) appetite. In perfect harmony with their label, Cold Meat Industry's saying "we are what we eat", the duo Carleklev / Paulsson invites us to a rather unpleasant banquet in which human flesh isn't differentiated from others, so called "edible" meats (Foodchain). A macabre feast, which sound texture made of industrial saturations, martial rhythmics and manly vocals, contrasts with the daintiness of the pianos, the electronica touches and other synths, not forgetting this famous cello which contributes so, to Sanctum's strong identity. Less baroque than the previous album (the female vocals are almost non-existent here), "Let's Eat" shows us a band which has been mutating during eight long years of purgatory, swapping myrrh for sulphur on a dissonant and distorted album. Icy and singular, this record appears like an oddity in a catalogue which is used to more homogeneous ambiences. Even the artwork which is closer to Dada collages than the gothic hazes or the usual industrial rusts of Cold Meat, puts you in front of what looks like an indigestible plate, but which becomes quite savoury in the end.
Stéphane Leguay |
|
| |
Cabin in the Sky
[Crammed]
Has the label Crammed decided to put in the spotlight again some of its catalogue's cult bands? After Minimal Compact, it's Tuxedomoon's turn to be reborn from its ashes, with a new album, result of the recent reformation of its three founders, Steven Brown, Peter Principle and Blaine Reininger. We found again this band and its unique way of playing their instruments, always on an unsteady balance between classicism and experimentation. A music full of emotion and sensibility which is, in turns, romantic, rebel and whimsical. Strings, brass and vocals still serve the fertile imagination of the band which offers us an album equal to what we expected. We especially liked four gems on this opus: A Home Away shows the ability of this band to create high in emotion but minimalist tracks, the vocals and the violins of Baron Brown and Mysty Blue carried us away, and the electronic touch of Luther Blisset brings an original note to Tuxedomoon compositions. Let's also mention that the album benefited from the participation of some guests-stars like Tarwater, John Mc Entire (Tortoise), Aksak Maboul (alias Hollander and Kenis, the men in the shadow of Crammed), Marc Collin, Juryman and DJ Hell. For sure, the magic is still here.
Delphine Payrot |
|
| |
Live and Electric in Seattle
Live in Seattle-Acoustic
Thrown Away
[2Blossoms]
Very few bands can claim that they've taken a drastic new path like VAST did, at least in the way they used to distribute their own music. The operation was launched last summer when Jon Crosby, abandoned by his record label, decided to release new VAST's albums through his website at a ridiculous price. The success for "Turquoise" and "Crimson" was so big that 456Entertainment found interest in the Californians, and allowed them to release "Nude" as a proper CD. Not willing to give up now, it seems like Jon Crosby has found a new economic model for his band, and has been offering on his website, since the end of may, three new productions at the usual ridiculous price.
The first one is the recording of an acoustic set played in Seattle on may 10th, at the Tower Records shop, in front of some stupefied fans. The set list gathers classic VAST songs along with recent ones, plus the two exclusive tracks Having Part of You and Punish Me.
Then comes an electric concert, recorded the same night and surely not one of their best as Jon Crosby is breathless on several tracks. He even leaves the mic to his new guitarist, Patrick McGuire, on The Last One Alive. This recording shows the energy and emotion VAST shows on stage though. There's no doubt, VAST doesn't cheat and offers raw performances to their fans' pleasure.
The band also conquers the digital single market, favoring their effective Thrown Away track from "Nude". Unfortunately, this is the band's first mistake, as they give out many remixes (eight tracks, from which five are insipid remixes) not inspired and avoidable. This is the proof that quantity doesn't always rhyme with quality.
Bertrand Hamonou |
| | |  | | |
| |
|
As an unlikely crossing between John Carpenter's music and a kind of ambient trance-goa, "Escape" of OTX (Brume Records) fails where an artist like Oil 10 (with who he shares the same liking for synthetic sounds and Sci-Fi ambiences) managed to created with his album,"Arena", something particularly exciting. Otx gives the impression he really worked on the ambience but without bothering with the setting and what makes it. So, this is a bland and boring album, where we have to endure a series of shallow and winded "plans" which follow one another with no real logic and no homogeneity at all.
Another bad surprise, the album of Die Puppe (Kamisori Records), the new project of Usher, ex-Norma Loy. The compositions, a cold neat electro with a good trip-hop, are well done, but the vocal and its treatment reminds us of Mylène Farmer who would have had to much Tranxène, with a lazy diction and a bad accent. Unbearable.
We heard many good comments about "La Forge" of Grandchaos and his old school EBM, digging sounds in the Belgian scene of the 80s. With the rather good "Ionize Me" (Urgence Disk Records), the ex-Ivanovitch goes five years forward... and integrates more trance sounds, which remind, this time, of the more muscled Kode IV (the connoisseurs will remember Accelerate). In the end, we're still wondering, because even if it's quite pleasant to hear the classics again, it doesn't bring anything new.
Among the dusty and winded gothic scene, we're always surprised to discover some resistants who try to give this style a new momentum. In the same line as the Americans of Razor Skyline, the Swiss of Cell Division offer us with "Tsunami" a kind of agro-goth with a female vocal, which easily manages some nicely obsessing tracks (Hypnotized, Alien Fantasy). Somewhere between All About Eve with its EPO doped guitars and Christian Death with his feminin charm, "Tsunami" is a quite pleasant album.
There's something missing to Klangstabil's "Taking Nothing Seriously" (Ant-Zen): homogeneity, but in the same time, the variety here is very interesting. We bounce from track to track (there are eight of them, written between 2000 and 2004), going from the shadow of Jean-Luc De Meyer (on the fascinating You May Start), to very emotional tracks (Gloomy Day, Push Yourself) and others more serene or more enraged. You'll spend 45 amazing minutes between ambient, powernoise and harsh electronic and it will seem well too short.
Christophe Labussière
|
If the last Front Line Assembly disappointed you, if you expected something tougher, more muscled, for the new meeting of Leeb and Fulber, which made the headlines all around the world, well then, we urge you to listen to "Vanished" (SPV), the new EP of our Canadian electro heroes. Made of two relatively rhythmed remixes of the track Vanished and three terribly efficient novelties, this EP is a good surprise for those who expected from Front Line Assembly a less Delerium sounding electro-dark than on "Civilization".
Waiting for the release of the album "Wrack and Ruin" (foregone at the end of this Summer), let's mention the release of "Born to Be Hated" (Out Of Line), the new single of Hocico, available in CD and in a limited edition vinyl. There's nothing new in Mexico City, the duo only repeats the same mechanisms: Born to Be Hated is a surprise-less "hit", obviously accompanied by the usual remixes and a pretty good novelty, Winds of Treason, which is even more interesting than the rest.
Finally, let's mention the release in the United States of "Querschnitt" (Metropolis), the compilation regrouping the more dancing tracks of Lights Of Euphoria. This is a good occasion to rediscover the career of Torben Schmidt's electro-EBM project. This quite prolific producer who made the best period of the labels Zoth Ommog and Bloodline. So, there are 17 tracks which cover the period between 1993 and 2001 with some remixes made by their "colleagues", Leaether Strip, Psyche and In Strict Confidence.
Renaud Martin
|
Hecate, Fanny, Xingu Hill, Axiome, Donna Summer and Duran Duran Duran are some of the breakcore stars that you'll find on the compilation "Carbon" (Mirex). Beside the already mentioned names, there are some good surprises, like the reworked version of the famous film music ("Psycho") by Blaerg on the track Shower Scene. Let's also mention the original compositions of Ove-naxx, Sedarka and Xanopticon (even if, unfortunately, he's still quite insufferable on the long run) and the presence of End, which contrasts with the rest of this explosive record.
"Matki Wandalki" (A-musik), the new album of Felix Kubin, strangely sounds like... Felix Kubin's. Naturally, could you say. So natural in fact, that we don't know what to think of this crazy German anymore (you must see him on stage!), especially since we listen to his "Tetchy Teenage Tapes" (released lately by Ski-pp, the label of the DAT Politics), a compilation which contains tracks he wrote as a teenager. We can only but notice that Felix Kubin was already doing the same music at 13! It's amazing but quite obvious: Felix Kubin will always play the same kind of music, so let's enjoy his unique and anachronous pop, his psychotic vocal ("Hit me, provider") and his strange covers, like the neurasthenic adaptation of Lionel Ritchie's Hello (as a bonus track on the CD).
The French netlabel, Autres Directions In Music, proposes us to download on its website (or to buy for 5 Euros) its last production, a five tracks EP of Atone entitled "Un Jour". Even if its music doesn't immediately raise our enthusiasm (we got the impression we heard most of the tracks before...), Atone ("apathy" in French) doesn't have the right name. His compositions are refined and evolve in a clear and attractive universe, it's quite restful but far from the apathy suggested by his name. Maybe, this very melodic electronica should follow the trend of the "all-laptop", but its elegance will make us listen to it with pleasure again.
Carole Jay
| |
