AMUTE – the sea horse limbo
(CD, intr version)
A clerk in a record shop would file this under
indietronica, but as always the service of record store clerks are either
overrated or unavailable. Amute’s second album is, in easy words, a
masterpiece of introversion, inspection and immersion. This music is made
with the intention to drown the listener in sound and song, but unlike the
classics to be named at will here, the focus on sound massively overpowers
the song-part. Jerome Deuson aka aMute stretched the boundaries of his music
and the genre he works in to enormous extensions. In some parts a big wave
of tight and dense sounds splashes over the listener. At other parts
everything is left open, small noises betraying the fear that the music is
over, and the effect of this sparsity is no less awe-inspiring and
overpowering. “The sea horse limbo” albeit its small and sweet title is
an enormous event of music and sound. (This is also its main difference to
the growing number of ambient and electronica that is usually flowing my
household, such as currently Fourcolor, Vitor Joaquim or Greg Headly. But this is only an aside for the
more current readers of this site.)
Jerome Deuson has used the two years well since his
debut was released also by intr version. Next to starting his own record
label, Stilll, he widened the scope of his music from the basic electronica
and glitches fused with guitarsounds heavily manipulated yet endearingly
beautiful. Now it includes instruments from classical music such as a cello
(played by Jean Paul Dessy from the musiques nouvelles ensemble), real
drums, field recordings and voices (amongst them Jenna Robertson from Avia Gardner
– check the praise review of their album “more than tongue can tell”
also on intr version.) Within this framework of musicians, the structure of
songs falls apart or is diffused under layers and layers of sounds until the
varying strings are brought together again, either lavishly and softly or
with a surprising kick such as in “hit my country”. Within the richness
of the sounds the structures don’t seem to matter much anyway. Songs and
their parts drift by like big ocean liners, were you are unable to look
away, lean back and watch them until they drift out of your area of vision.
It is no surprise to find Fennesz on the thankslist.
Today I think I listened to “the sea horse limbo”
for the fifteenth time, trying to capture the magic behind the atmospheres
presented. I even noted the bitparts for “when cyclic brussels gave up, it
turned me on”, but to no avail. Neither the idiosyncratic title of the
track nor the single strands of its DNA – field recording of vietnamese
(?) village, spheric drones, metallic screeches and echoes of bangs, and so
on, gave up any clues to my ears. The mixture of real place, industrial,
drone and ambient was overwhelming and like the rest of the record, drew me
into its area of effectiveness on and on and on. The next track defied me as
well, “Oh! Le Zeppelin” turns into the biggest and widest postrock song
ever since Godspeed! You
black emperor hit the scene, only with smaller ensemble. These
tracks aren’t meant to open up to the listener; they want to wrap him up
in layers and keep him warm before taking him far away. It is easy to follow
and hard to question. It is like unmasking the subconcious and locking away
the rationale at the same time.
