ENCRE

flux

CD, Clapping Music

A paradox, an enigma, a mystery – a lot has been said about Encre and either nothing or all of it is right. There are no middle ways, because the whole field of vision has been blurred. Songwriting and composition have turned out one and the same thing (not even two sides of the same coin, but really identical). Monotony is the new dynamic and there is no division between noise and sound and tones. One thing is clear, though, here is an artist consequently following the path laid down by his own vision. It doesn’t sound like this path will lead him to freedom and happiness; maybe if he has fought and won over his inner demons, desperations and nightmares, but that might be some time still. In the meantime, melancholia and darkness has a new name: Encre. A world of its own, maybe not the nicest surrounding to wish for but surely one of the most intriguing and interesting.

Hard to figure out and in the realm of those artists, which dwell on their being hard to figure out as an important part of their taken or conceived role as an artist, Encre stands out like the rock of Gibraltar. For really being an enigma. Let me explain. Austria had, about twenty years ago or longer, a thriving and pulsating young art scene. Artists like Schwarzkogler, Turrini and others took the rules and dogmas of society and turned them upside down by introducing new mysteries and secrets into their codes and thereby causing commotions, disturbances and protests which were meant to destroy the rigid rules of society. And for some time, I would say from a viewpoint of today, it worked. But this role has taken on a life of its own and finally eaten up the artists themselves. Nowadays, they find themselves of having to take on a position of distance, of dissonance and discontent just because they are Schwarzkogler, Turrini or whoever. They have turned into rules and dogmas themselves. A pity that is.

And a following generation of artists in the last decades has found themselves taking that role made up by the standpoint itself as a starting point, completely ignoring the original thought, that was truly connected to the real world it came from. Nowadays they mainly concentrate on the artworld and “being an artist” is a matter of behaving in a certain, defined way more than producing art. Well, at least that is my point of view. To sum that up, a lot of electronic musicians nowadays are mysterious and enigmatic on purpose. They work hard on producing music and statements that are hard to understand, if at all – also because of an audience that prefers things they don’t understand, because those have to be the more “artistic” works and of course they’d never admit having no idea what is going on. And the artists have no idea what they are doing either, but everyone is applauding so it must be okay to go on. A paranoid and tragically ironic situation, if you think about it, but anyway, to finally get around this longish introduction I will sum up the connection to Encre in a little sentence, or maybe two: Encre is none of that. He is the real paradox.

Except for the constant melancholia, there is nothing really to pin him down, and the source of that melancholia stays just as hidden. Yann Tambour aka Encre wavers from modern classical avantgarde to drawn out post-rock (compare the Canadian constellation-bands) to hushed yet manically driven vocals like a neurotic Serge Gainsbourg in a lonely phonebooth whispering the details of a big conspiracy into your ears. The atmosphere makes you think of Black Rain – black as in noir and rain as in Blade Runner, only there is no action only the underlying fear / feeling of danger lurking around the edge and the desperate longing for a better life; like a movie by Michael Haneke. Musically there are both structural elements of songwriting / chansons as there are of classical chamber pieces. The language is French, which, for me at last, adds another layer incomprehensibility, but half of the CD is instrumental anyway, at other times water sounds, noises and eerie vocals draw your attention while a monotonous cello or violin lays the shakey floor on which the whole building stands.

You start to wish for the grand release of emotions to forcefully shown by e.g. Godspeed! You black emperor, who would have a similar sense of nostalgia and disdain for current society, but this release never comes. There is only more desperation and hopelessness. Even if the music changes from classical to avantgarde band in one short instance, the feeling stays the same. There is also no sense of the microcosmic beauty of the works of Mitchell Akiyama, to name one artist who has released a great current record, uses similar structural tools (noise paired with classical composition or band-situation songwriting) and whose music is no less mysterious, but Encre has no sense for beauty, only for desperation and monotonous epic melancholia. But, boy, is that music intriguing, encompassing and enriching. Maybe Encre lives through his own longwinded catharsis, one that doesn’t explode but glimmers away in a long and painful process. Hopelessness has no time dimension. Living in the past takes forever and living in dreams of a past that has never happened is the loneliest state in the world. Such is the vast art of Encre.

I have had the prejudice for some time, that French musicians never really follow their visions or images to the final consequence. This prejudice was fed mainly by the French rock’n’rollers who always sounded like bubble gum-pop and missed the whole aspect of danger and violence, and also the French jazzers, who were more concerned with re-living a lifestyle of decades long gone than trying to get through to the true spirit of this exciting music. I used to think that, but not anymore. Nowadays I know that it was my vision that was blurred. That all I saw was the top cream of mainstream-shit that was handed to me by the media (as in almost everything) and that there is quite a lot of artistic potential and unique visions to discovered in France also. And Encre is the current highlight for sure.

www.clappingmusic.com

05/2004