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Befitting an act naming himself after a lesser-known constellation, Joan Malé’s latest release features ten soundtracks for a quiet night beneath the stars, in the company of a variety of electronic appliances. Drilled beats and techno glitches provide a stuttering electronic heartbeat to some heart achingly melancholic melodies. Warmer than Kraftwerk, earthier than Boards of Canada, the truth of the sound lies somewhere between the two. This, if you will, is metal machine soul.
The ambient tone persists early on, ‘Moment of light’ and ‘Little cowboys’ recalling Metamatics dreamy doodlings, with lap steel adding some western colour to the latter. Then somewhere in the middle the emphasis is switched to allow guitar to steadily take control. ‘When the trees sleep’ is the sound of Voice of the Seven Woods making light of an electrical storm, whilst the rather unearthly ‘How was the earth?’ bears witness to a ghostly voice conjuring forth a euphoric splash of casiotone post rock. The music becomes increasingly more organic as things progress with guitar taking precedence and electronic beats rendered merely incidental, like Vini Reilly outwitting Martin Hannett in a battle for artistic control of a lost Durutti album, with the ensuing frustrations sending him crashing through a wall of synthetic feedback for ‘Escape from gravity’. The resultant fallout of ‘Rain song’ sees the feedback reigned in to take a less chaotic form.
With a few hired feathered types adding birdsong to ‘The hymn without song’, an album of atmospheric and psyche cleansing beauty is bought to a suitably blissful conclusion to leave you feeling far from apocalyptic. A hidden, neatly packaged gem.
RICHARD STOKOE
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