Javier Pinango & David Area - Drôle de Guerre
One of the latest releases from Spanish industrial-drone experimentalist Javier Pinango, you may have noticed another excellent release with him which we reviewed back in 2017 (Two Unfocused Cardinal Points). The album has been made in the company of a David Area, which has been thoroughly active in the Spanish experimental scene. This one also came out on Marbre Negre by digital means and physical as a 50 copies ltd. CD in an awesome looking slim-line digipack (Notice the fantastic cover artwork here folks!). A 7 tracks album, almost 80 minutes long!. This one is actually a live-recording... really interesting stuff here!.
First tracks open the ears to rusty glitch-sounds dripping into your brain, distant screaming, and hypnotic metallic drones, monotonic death-industrial bass-rumblings joined up with acid-drenched psychedelic moods. Really interesting and very digestible soundscape for any hungry ears/minds. So far it seems/sounds like a great live performance!. Second track takes me back to some of the early recordings by the BBC-radiophonic workshop or even the kraut-rock/ambient pioneers Cluster. Heavy industrial space-ambient anyone?. Beautiful mindbending sounds you can travel your mind with (Free trip into another dimension anyone??).
The third track being the longest on the album (17:10 minutes) being also one of the most surreal and mesmerizing treats here. A kind of a modern update to some of the early ambient/atmospheric recordings by Throbbing Gristle, and yes... it will lift you some inches from the ground!. You can almost sense a touch of urban decay here, a touch of something (Abandoned factories) which hasn´t changed for years and years and then it just stands there... rotting and falling apart. Probably waiting for something to tear it down and building something new, which sadly will not happen (For some reason). A very beautiful dark piece which I can highly recommend for walkies with your headphones on in the decayed industrial and forgotten areas of your hometown.
Fourth track sutle settles the mood further down, Tangerine Dream and Biosphere fans anyone?. Feels like the spaceship has finally landed somewhere, maybe it is soil? (Maybe not). It feels like drifting on an icy cloud while looking down?... What kind of cloud it is which u can land your spaceship on, I do not know! Incredible track this is. Love the mind-cutting high-tones here!. The fifth track puts you into a heavy sort of static hypnotic state, throbbing monotonic piece which bombs you further down to the surface from the icy-clouds. A pulsating beam shoots the space traveler through the atmosphere and the clouds, when will you reach the surface (if there is one?!).
From here, I will keep my mouth shut! I will then ask you (as the reader) to join this journey and explore it. As mentioned before, we are talking about other planets, dimensions, other states of minds, levitation... YOU NAME IT!. Heavy industrial space ambient, are we talking about a new genre?. FANTASTIC live-album, I would wish that I was there to experience it!. Sadly no :(.
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