Entre Vifs – Offrande et
Partage. CD. Aussaat. 2019. Aussaat 10.
1.
Holidays in Stahlstadt.
2.
Red Fruits.
3.
A Benevolent Storm Front.
4.
Chaorgia Pantomachia.
Bonjour mes amis français,
merci de m'envoyer un autre album d'Entre Vifs sur Aussaat Records !!!! (Google
Translate est génial !!).
After the excellent Ontologie,
I was converted to the work of Entre Vifs; their work remains some of the best
I’d heard this year. The booklet to Offrande contains images of landscapes,
architecture and shots documenting Entre Vifs amazing self-made electronic devices
that make up their sounds. This album refers to recent legal fights by the
project and a resurgence of activity in 2018. Offrande et Partage references
Leonard Cohen’s Anthem (The Future) in its’s sleeve notes. The work was
performed live in their Noisecraft Workshop in March – April 2018, these are
excerpts of sessions 49B, 50A, 50B and 51A.
The opening track Holidays in
Stahlstadt builds through ambient echoes in its’ slow creepiness that drags
itself out, it’s doesn’t have the immediate massive attack of the last album. It’s
heavy on haunted atmospherics and seems to wind itself back and down sometimes
to a reduced palette of sound in order to grow again. Although I am immediately
aware that the sounds are those of Zorin and Kobaian that make Entre Vifs, the track
drags in sound, creating a very different type of brutality. It also seems to
throw sounds around the room demonstrating epic dynamics to the point where I
thought there was background noise around me, this builds to sonic hysteria - this
long death of an opening track demonstrates the sophistication that exists and
excites me within the sound of Entre Vifs.
Red Fruits seems to build on
the Slow Death of sound. It attempts to form a sense of percussion within
itself only to start dragging and barking out choking sounds as if it is in
combat within itself only to then project that combat as sound towards the
listener, this frequently happens throughout the album. There’s a wide scope of
distance that’s played with, some of the track exists in the distance and
projects to the forefront through steps of sound. It addresses its own failure
by the recurrence of noise as percussion/beat and how it doesn’t become a noise
artist using beats and making pointless EBM/techno stuff is again impressive. The
work drags itself down to chokes, croaks and echoes; it splutters and fades.
The dragging and the dying
seem to become intensified for A Benevolent Storm Front, the sound seems to pull
itself and explode continuously, strip back suddenly and converse with itself –
it’s very brutal, not settling on a formula, it seems to reformulate and reshape
itself. The haunted sound echoes and resonates in its full form. Things shift
non-stop, background and foreground communicate with each other continuously. Brutal
interruptions lead new sonic formations, sometimes a rhythm tries to start, but
that is warped and flattened to noise.
They save the biggest until
last, Charargia Pantomachia (Your Attention Please) scrapes itself into action
and all hell breaks loose. Low-level and High-Level assault share shifts in
full distorted metal abuse. Charargia does
seem to shift into even more territories of sound than the others, it has the
same yet even more exaggerated parallels in sound but never stays in one place for
too long. I like the injections of Harsh Noise blasts put into the sound, they
scream and interrupt.
This is an angrier album than Ontologie,
it doesn’t let you zone in on the massive assaults of electronic and metal
noise, it shifts around too much, you’re frequently pulled in and moved around
with the work. The destructive qualities of the album literally create cracks
to let the light in. I want more Entre Vifs in my collection, I will have to go
backwards and get it all because I want to know, were they always this good, or
did it take decades to get this good? Epic album, ace progression, do get it.
Choppy Noodles 2019.
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