review: Vromb "Noize Mélodia"

Montréal’s Vromb has returned with a new selection of sonic challenges for us to sort throught, and once again, his manifested machinations almost command a most serious attention from the listener. Noize Mélodia, released by Ant-Zen, continues the one-man project’s complex and intriguing audio explorations, this time around somewhat departing from what some of us can only describe as his “trademark” sound developed over the last few albums, although one would be a fool to proclaim that Vromb’s sound in any era was anything but self-repetitive and reliant on past techniques. In fact, Noize Mélodia is indeed unmistakingly Vromb, as each track builds on itself, morphs and evolves into unchartered and yet self-exploratative areas, not unlike allowing the song’s own “vibration” or “tone” to shape it’s own self, with only slight nudges from the human operator behind the unique and un-imitable sounds. Strangely hypnotic while constantly keeping us on our toes, each individual song also works as part of the whole, and one could easily just enjoy the whole album as a single entity which never stagnates nor lingers on any surface or territory for too long. Complex yet simple without ever becoming too minimal, textures rich in density but fluid in motion, Vromb’s alien and yet vaguely familiar audio excursions feel more like a fevered dream or hallucinatory state of consciousness rather than a nightmarish trip through strange lands (one possible exception could be the track “tempête solaire suivie de: écho d’une terre sans hommes”, which starts off more abrasive than one would expect from a more recent Vromb release, but does subside into a moderately less off-putting state). If anything, this time around the work seems as though it is always at the cusp of losing control, but Vromb seems perfectly at ease to fend off the possible chaos and remain in total control of the self-evolving audioscapes. Like much of all of Vromb’s oeuvre, it is best to enter without any preconceived expectations and allow the sounds to take the helm of the piloting while the listener should be both attentive of the happenings but remain an appreciative passenger.  

I have known Vromb's mastermind ever since the mid-90s when I discovered his debut album, and have remained a dedicated fan ever since (with only a slight absence during a part of the 2000s where I was virtually absent from pretty much everyone and everything). He had warned me that his latest album was anything but an easy listening experience and that I should indeed be warned before going in, expecting something more akin to his last record "Chorégraphie" or some of his more recent offerings. Yet with this in mind, I did not find "Noize Mélodia" as much of an anomaly as I would have expected after Hugo's warnings. In fact I was pleasantly surprised for the most part, and find this album another fantastic entry in the Vromb catalogue.

yet ANOTHER Hollywood crush: Gina Carano

Yes, maybe I am starting to turn this blog into the "hot lady of the week" Spotlight but I had to include this one. Before anything else, I am one of those guys who would have prefered that the Wonder Woman film would have cast a lady like Gina Carano instead of the meatless bone bag they did, for obvious Hollywood reasons (stupid comity-run studios!). Anyway, Gina Carano may be better known as the ultimate fighting machine which made her gain the infamy she has, but she is also a more than competent actor and deserves more breaks than she does now. Anyway I deffinately go a soft spot for her and relish every chance I get to see her exercising her thespian chops on screen. Deffinately Worth to keep an eye on!

great album covers: Thomas Koner "Nunatak Gongamur"

Yes, this one was bound to show up eventually!

Although this is Thomas Koner's first official album, it isn't one of my favorites... Strange, isn't it? Well to be honest, I am not a fan of Mr Koner's total œuvre, as I seem to prefer a small cluster of his material from a specific time period. Not saying his other material isn't any "good" (quite the opposite!) but for the desired effect I go to in Thomas Koner's music, a handful of releases do the trick, and it is essentially what came after his debut album "Nunatak Gongamur", up until his "Zyklop" album. I am however not versed in his later works as finding decently priced Thomas Koner music is next to impossible, and so it renders enjoyment of his material quite limited. In any case, "Nunatak Gongamur", or "Ge-Nuuk-Nuuk" as an ex-friend and myself used to call it, features mostly very subtle and relaxing drone-like textures which were his main orientation up until "Zyklop", except for two or three piece which veer quite un-naturally into intense sonic bursts of uncharacteristically noisier portions. Essentially, "Ge-Nuuk-Nuuk" can lull you to sleep but will wake you up quite abruptly in a few key moments which makes this album a more difficult listening experience, unless some slight editing is done (and I myself have attempted to do said editing for fun but was never able to fully get a proper Lx Wheill remix of it). In any case, while "Ge-Nuuk-Nuuk" may not be his most formidable album, the actual cover is something to take it, as it does perfectly capture the general mood of his following records, such as "Teimo" and "Permafrost". Enjoy!

Techno Animal became Zonal?

Yes, Zonal!

Techno Animal was always a band/project I had a slight inkling for. In the 90s I was eposed to them via their second album, the double CD (yes, a DOUBLE CD release!) clocking at about 2 and a half hours entitled "Re-Entry". I since then followed everything I could of them, including their last album "Brotherhood Of The Bomb" which featured half the album's tracks with rapper guest vocalists, Something I was not too keen on. Anyway I won't go into détails about who Techno Animal were, under what other names they recorded, and which of their releases were tight versus other less-than-stellar ones, but suffice it to say that the project official disbanded in 2004 with a one-time-only reunion show in 2017. However what is intriguing is that they decided to continue their venture under the new name Zonal, perhaps in an attempt to disassociate their namesake with the "techno" movement, as their name was always meant to be moreof a technological animal than a "techno" (as a genre) animal. In any case, I seriously need to hunt this release down! Cheers, and I hope you are enjoying your month of april!

Another "not quite" Hollywood crush: Mathilda May

She may have been one of my earliest "movie star" crushes from way back in the 80s. If my memory serves me right 9and my memory is by no means to be trusted!), Mathilda May may have been the second Hollywood-ish crush I ever had. Althoguh she has appeared in about a handful of those studio-produced flicks from the USA, most of Ms May's work can be seen in European productions, as well as stage plays. She isn't just an accomplished actress, but a decent singer (although I am no fan of her musical directions, but that's just a question of personnal taste) and was originally trained in ballet. Anyway, she's always been a crush of mine which is why I thought I would do a little blurb about her here on my personnal space!

Die Angel (Ilpo Vaisaenen & Dirk Dresselhaus)

Being a rather die-core fan of Panasonic, it was only natural that I try to keep up with everything the duo of Mika Vainio (RIP) and Ilpo Vaisaenen did on the side, either as collaborations or solo projects. While Mika's output was far more prolific, Ilpo's was very carefully selective. One of his other bands he did in tandem alongside Panasonic (and post) was a project which was originally called Angel, but re-baptised Die Angel a few years ago, a collaboration along side Dirk Dresselhaus and sometimes Hildur Gudnadottir. I managed to score a few of their albums throughout the years through no small feat, as these have limited distribution and are rarely if ever available outside the non-retail market (try finding that at your local Sunrise Records shop!!!)

As a "whole", their third album "Kalmukia" remains my favorite, not just for the great opening track, but for the overall tone of the record which feels a bit less constrained and secluded than others. If you will allow me the expression, it almost sounds as though Die Angel went on a field trip for this one and introduced these "themes" of "openess" in their sound, something their debut album "Angel" seriously lacked.


Released a few months later, the albnum "Hedonism" seems as though it could almost be their "breakthrough" record, if that were in any way possible, due to having generally shorter length tracks, except for the fascinating "Mirrorworld" which clocks just over 20 minutes. It is a great album, one which I highly recommend to anyone as a starting point if you aren't familiar with the project.

(Below) their sixth album from 2011 entitled "26000" is maybe one of their more difficult listens due to the longer pièces (the opener "Before The Rush" and the closer "Paradigm Shift") sometimes dabbling in more intense noise textures. However the remaining three tracks perfectly act out the inner layers of this album's somewhat claustrophic but expanding tone.

Anyway, if you like somewhat intense drone-like experimental atmosphères, not quite electronic and not quite pure noise, you should deffinately give these guys a try. They now have nine albums out there (some are only available on vinyl) also available as downloads (a few selected ones only) so you should be able to enjoy them for yourself!

Great Album Covers: Tackhead Tape Time

Here's a little weirdness from my past: I was first exposed to this via a radio-recorded tape from one of my friends who wanted me to listen to a piece he culled off a radio show. Anyway long story short I went out and bought the LP and this was my first real exposure to "rap" music away from the post-break-dancing 80s and Run-DMC pre-Beasty Boys era. The confusion was that this was essentially a "compilation" of sorts, featuring tracks from various Tackhead incarnations, Gary Clail's Soundsystem and OnUSound projects. None of the tracks from this LP appear elsewhere in this form, and trying to figure out which parts belonged to who needed some serious research in the days before the interweb. Also, all tracks on this album were also pretty much mixed into one another which meant they flowed almost seemlessly and continuously into each other. Although I quickly out grew the "Tackhead" / Gary Clail backwagon after the release of the follow-up album "Friendly as a Hand Grenade" (it was a step further into reggae and rap than this album), this album cover remains still quite iconic in it's simplicity. I am still surprised no one ever brought these guys to court for "borroying" some of the visuals on this cover!