Album: Iceberg
Artist: Musique Moléculaire
Label: Self-released
Catalogue no: N/A
Tracklist:
1. Non-lieu
2. Angle
Mort
3. Funérailles
4. Autopsie
5. Arcane
6. Subterfuge
7. Exogamique
I have to admit, for all
that I like (and prefer) dark, loud, and often unlistenable music, there are
occasions (like today, for instance) that I just want to be soothed by the
strains of calming drones and soaring chord progressions rather than have my
brains pummelled repeatedly by a metaphorical 2,500 ton forging press. I make
no apologies for that. And this is exactly what I get from this album from
Quebécois project Musique Moléculaire: a sonically diverse set of semi-improvised
texturally-nuanced and descriptive pieces, set far above the madding crowd and
in the subterranean deeps by turns. This is music one can melt into, and music which can induce shivers – and
it deserves a broader audience, hence the review.
‘Non-lieu’ (Dismissal) is
the permission granted for you to leave your physical body behind, and to let
the astral construct whizz around the four-dimensional space that is the
multiverse. Grand chords and drones lift the spirit, sending it flying upwards
into the thermosphere and beyond, ejecting us from the prison of gravity and
breaking the shackle binding us to earth. Once beyond our home planet’s grasp,
the vista opens out, simultaneously exhilarating and terrifying, reducing the
human scale to the ridiculous and infinitesimally small. ‘Angle Mort’ (Blind
Spot) opens with drones that fan out in all directions, accompanied by a sweet
refrain that genuinely sent shivers up and down my spine: now we’re in the
regions where nebulae, dust clouds, and other assorted celestial oddities live,
a boiling, roiling, and coiling riot of activity that can only be perceived on
timescales far longer and bigger than we lowly humans can even conceive of.
When one star blinks out, another star ignites into existence, and so it goes
on.
‘Funérailles’ (Funeral)
begins in elegiac style, composed of both hope and grief, a small light limning
a dark horizon, before a thick pall of darkness descends, a stifling black
essence snuffing out whatever light there is and diluting its brilliance. Death
is a finality, a state of non-being from which no one can ever return, the
mystery that awaits us all at the end of life. The vision presented is airless
and lightless, a suffocating blanket of terrifying loneliness and distance, a
chasm of separation that is unbridgeable. ‘Autopsie’ (Autopsie), follows on
naturally – a reflection of the human desire to understand, to have things
explained. It’s a sundering of the wholeness of the body, necessary perhaps,
but for all that still a cutting of flesh to exhume a story and a reason, a
forced ripping of soul from matter. It is not done for the dead person’s sake –
it is entirely for those of us who still live. Death doesn’t matter to the
dead.
‘Arcane’ is, perhaps,
another logical follow-on – the unveiling of the ultimate mystery itself that
exists beyond death, the secret puzzle that only the dead are allowed to
witness. It’s a mystery that pervades all matter, from the lowliest component
of matter to the vast conglomerations that coalesce as galaxies from myriad
quantum complexities. ‘Subterfuge’ pulses in on metallic swellings and whines,
before settling into plangent drones and reverberations, constantly twining and
coiling, endlessly moving and sparking, and letting off energy in the form of a
sequenced bass rhythm, which almost but not quite veers into EDM territory (I
bear no shame in admitting I was nodding my head along with it at this point –
no hip-shuffling though).
‘Exogamique’ (Exogamic)
brings the album to a close, a series of reverberating notes fighting with both
themselves and each other. It forms a curious but very mild atonality, setting
the competing noises tumbling and cascading, to form strange waterfalls of
noise. (Exogamy is the practice of marrying outside one’s group, tribe, or
extended family relationships). The last few bars bring us almost full circle
to a flavour of the beginning, the reverberations returning us to earth and the
body. The circle is complete.
While this is in many
ways closer to ambient than the dark variety don’t dismiss it on those grounds
because there are streaks of darkness here aplenty. It’s a very literate form
of music, the kind that plays with textures and moods to good effect, follows a
well-plotted path with logical connections, and in the process forms narratives
and stories, as well as painting vivid scenes and vignettes. It does so without
superfluity or unnecessary flourishes, instead using a deft economy of less
being more. This is one to which I will return, particularly because it shies
away from the norms of conventional ambient and strays and wanders wherever it
feels like going. I think the semi-improvisational nature helped enormously in
helping to draw out the moods expatiated here, those dispositions ranging from
cosmic soaring to plumbing the stygian depths. Like a good book, this has
everything, and comes to a satisfying conclusion.
Available as a download
from:
Psymon Marshall 2019.
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