LIVING ORNAMENTS - vlokken

(CD, narrominded)

I was a late bloomer to a lot of great things, but I never had the feeling I missed out on something. I still don’t. Looking back at a history of running after trends would feel much worse today I am sure than looking back and inspecting what I probably missed out on. The only way to form a unique language as an artist seems to be to seclude yourself strictly from any kind of outside interfering but to keep on actively searching for inspiration in all areas. Finally, having a business relationship with your artform at the same time as having a creative one with it, seems almost infeasible. For instance, I read the record reviews people write for money and I know those people and I know they’d rather be writing about something else, something they really like, but instead have to make witty and introspective remarks (because their love for music still gives them the drive to deliver good work) about some overhyped young rockband or old rockstars latest album, which makes me cringe and thank a non existing god for my job, which has nothing to do with music at all. I thank the same god for working colleages that tell me how great The Raconteurs are or how much fun rock festivals are, and then I come up to them and drop names like Makazoruki, Hydrus or Living Ornaments – all three on narrominded, very diverse and all distinctively good in their own special way – and the looks I earn for that are priceless. They usually think Psychon is a death metal band.

Lars Meijer and Coen Polack are the masterminds behind Living Ornaments and the narrominded label, and how the keep their own unique musical language while still listening to so much great and diverse music is beyond me. Maybe the diversity of their releases – if that is something to judge their musical tastes by – is attributable, at least to some degree. “vlokken” is filled with dreams, dances, spheres and freely flowing ideas. It has the density of Massive Attack, yet there are plenty of analogue instruments. The tracks seem to be more structured around sounds and not vice versa, yet the feeling is one of ambient evolution. There are noises, hisses, glitches and other crackles, yet there is a harmony and aim for melody audible in all parts (even in the noisier “gevarendriehock”). There is a speechless quality of deaf/mute aimless wandering with numbed limbs, yet the expression is clear and distinct and says a thousand words. The music seems like perambulating through a foreign city, letting the moment decide which way to turn and not caring about chosing a place to go, yet there is a sense of knowing your path and of finding whatever you were looking for by not looking. Like lying in a sun chair, watching the clouds drift by effortlessly and watch their transformation and changes while the sky seems to stay the same. It is zen-rock, relaxed and resting on a stable mind in its inner self.

All the parts, as diverse as they might be, are very well balanced and the structures are big. Not just because this is a lengthy (though it doesn’t feel long) recording with 14 tracks. Piano lines, simple but evocative, recurr again and again amidst the bass lines, electronic gadgetry and computer twiddling. Various kinds of beats and rhythms, electronic and real, come up, drive onwards and then seep back into the fundament of the tracks. At times the notes glisten and burn as if on fire, then they are soothing and cool like a nice breeze. “Vlokken” is not an ambient album though it definitely is an ambient album at the same time, because it fuses very different things and ingredients under a single and dense framework, but keeps this framework so light and open at the same time that 80ies synth keys fit just as field recordings of someone slurping something (or something sounding similar to both) fit. On their own terms and time, especially. So, in effect, tracks sound experimental and straightforward, traditionally avantgarde and adventerous progressive, at the same time. Which is fascinating.