ARDEN

conceal

CD, stilll

The loud and the silent, the dynamic and the static, the organic and the electric, the lonely electro-experimentalist and the live improvising band, and ever so on. It is easy to name the polar opposites that amalgamate in this record, but indefinitely harder to pronounce the outcome. The synthesis is the hardes part to understand, though maybe the easiest one to subconsciously figure out in terms of beauty or aesthetics. The dissection into microscopic parts will never result in the expected outcome, and that is the way the magic of a musical band works. Especiall against evil odds. Everything in this record, from the music to the way it came into existence speaks of the almost inevitable will to make it come true, and the barriers that had to be taken seem to pour the energy and the life into the music. Down to the founding of their own record label, the minds and wills behind Arden made it all happen according to a vision that was a mere outline or blurry shape in the not so far distanced future.

The main focus is a swirling black hole of computer processing that twists and manipulates organic sounds from stringed instruments – but a bleak description as this one will only dampen the real glow that “conceal” is able to vaporate. A list of band members will be illustrative, butonly on the surface: There is Jerome Deuson, who sort of managed the get together of the six members of the band and who runs the label Still with Alain Lefebvre. He has released his first album under the moniker aMute on intr_version records, who have brought us the like of Joshua Treble and Vitamins For You. Intr_version is run by Mitchell Akiyama, who has two albums with his band Desormais and one recorded by himself (which was praised by me almost as mightily as this one). Jeuc Dietrich is a cellist who was worked with Supertramp, but also works as a film director and composer. To fasten things up, Jürgen Heckel from Germany aka sogar, Sebastien Roux from France and Christopher Bailleau from Belgium, who make up the rest of the band, are all renowned experimental guitarist or guitar sound processors. And all six of them are interested in innovation and the baring of inner beauty.

The overall feeling is one of suspended time, with good and bad luck on hold and neither construction nor destruction possible at the moment. Some of these tracks, like Ne se soucier de rien” sound like they are the basis or fundament of something, while others, especially the very noisy guitar noise drones, sound like they are remnants of something. Sometimes the mood change comes right in the middle of a track and is very thorough, like moving from little electronic glitchy dots to a drum and waves of guitar-tracks hypnotic part. At times you’ll feel as if you are in the middle of one of those post modern orchestral alt.country records that a lot of bands from Canada have become famous for (from Fly Pan Am to Hanged Up and back to Sackville) especially when the guitars are being plucked and reverberate with echos of happier pasts. Then there is a noise thunderstorm here and there and inbetween a lot of digital trickery and electronic soundscapes that can be enlightening or depressing, a static drone or a frentically moving carpet of little sounds circling around each other.

It is an almost painful cliché to use, but on “conceal” you will discover something new with every listening, which means not a lot more than the vast amount of details engrained in these tracks. In my opinion and neverminding what some engineers and electronic artists want to tell you, the production or rather processing of organic sounds into electronic noise of whatever kind by software or hardware is still a result of luck and endurance more than experience and knowledge. Frequencies are too rich to be told what to do. Twiddle the knobs or click levers on the monitor, the minutest of movements might destroy one thing or lead you to something new. The main artistic work lies in chosing what to use and what to leave. For “conceal” Jerome Deuson did most of the mixing down, joined at times by Sebastian Roux, so most of the artistic input goes to him (very much like the architect getting all the praise for the building and not the wallbuilder).

There are some people, who believe life is just a journey that will take us somewhere special. Depending on how much pain you are willing to take, this place might be further or nearer. This kind of philosophy says nothing about which is better as longs as the concept of a vision isn’t introduced into the equation. If you can see the end of your journey, meant as a certain goal or accomplishment, then your strength will double and the journey might take you to places you never expected. If you prefer to stay at home and just wait, then all you will find is the end of the road and a distinctive sparkling of radiated noisewaves going off the air.

P.S.: Everytime I was finished with listening to “conceal” and I took off my headphones – for I mainly listen to music late at night when everyonelse here is sleeping – I always had the strange sensation of hearing people having conversations in the adjacent rooms. A very disconcerting experience, especially when it sounds like a lot of people silently talking as they will in a cocktail party. Someone has a tv-set running after midnight? But after thirty seconds or so it started to fade and was gone after a minute. An echo of the communitarian spirit that went into the production of this record?