French Version http://humeursurmusiquemoderne.blogspot.com/2011/06/lanny-may-coloured-midi-from-home-irm.html
For several years, Lanny May has been the half of the German duet of producers Davis & May. To make it simple, these 2 lads have supported, amplified and sublimed the Deep Techno move which begins to take it over a Minimal sometimes unstructured in France as well as in Germany.
They have split up in the end of 2009, if I remember correctly, after their last production: SIX (a magnificent mini-album of 6 tracks). It’s something that has always saddened me because these guys were the most avant-gardist and brilliant duet of production of the current generation. Fortunately, they haven’t stopped producing and far from it.
Lanny kept on releasing tracks on their initial label, Maripoza, and on the dutch label Cinematique Records of which I’ll talk about some other time. While Ryan Davis multiplied productions with for instance hallucinogenic bombs on BackHome / Klangwelt / Absolutive Records / and IRM Rec. Our friends from IRM precisely, accomplish the feat of gathering our two producers under the same label, although their argument seems deeper than just a simple artistic feud.
The Golden team of Joff Logarts (Dawad, Traumer, Edward Henton, & friends), shake regularly their asses between Paris and Marseille, in order to perform in the e-Wine Bar in the south, or in the last and wonderful Soirée Play of Electric “king” Rescue. It often delivers us furious EPs like Narotron, Conversation With A Smoking Fish or even Team Session EP.
After a fabulous first mini album (Art Love Iam on Maripoza Rec. .), I can honestly say that I was waiting impatiently to revel in the new masterpiece of Lanny. And when I have learnt that would be an EP made of five tracks and signed under IRM, I wasn’t far from orgasm. A production from our Berliner friend is pretty rare and you take time to enjoy it. Indeed, our little guy, unlike his alter ego Ryan, likes to make us wait. Lanny is someone who takes his time, and we can find that attitude in his tracks.
My second feeling was that after Art Love Iam, which was so perfect according to me, it seemed rather hard for Lanny to release something as good.
Here are some emotions I have felt while listening to this record. I’ve been through quite a lot.
Coloured Midi, whose title is brilliant, gives us the impression of facing two characters trying to communicate through two synths struggling alternately to take on each other.
The first one is angry; the second one is severe and throbbing. It starts from the 2nd minute. The sound is foggy and seems muffled. The mediums go up to take off that lead of the clouds in which it was. This little game will last up till the end of the track.
This track is a melodic confrontation where we are expecting an extraordinary explosion at every ascent which climax is the encounter between the two fiery melodies.
They caress each other and even touch sometimes but they never meet and fusion together. Can I dare saying what we have here are long foreplays that will never end on something else? We can feel a certain desire to go further.
Lanny refrained to exacerbate his kicks to keep this impression of balance we can feel all along the track. This choice doesn’t surprise me since the man seems to be willing to mark his music with a deep melancholy. This feeling will be the trademark of this EP.
So, Lanny May is a melancholic artist. Through his music he tells us moving stories. He is a sensorial conductor. Heliopause is a perfect example.
The structure of this second track is heavy, a bit dupstep-ic.
We find again a very low frequency nap that tune the main melody while in the highs, a sound of nap synth lead the progression of the track. This music makes me think of an equilibrist pitching on an extremely thin synthetic sting. All the instruments are gathering progressively to end up in communion. We reach some kind of fullness and harmony. A stabbing wave spills its flow in our ears and whole bodies. Our musical character runs on this 7 minutes long string. It disappears, and everything goes away, slowly. Time and space fade out. We are nothing but emotion.
A line of infra bass appears 20 seconds, just before the 7th minute: we are brought in another world to end this journey. They, little by little, it’s the end of a brilliant journey. A fist closes down, ending up the show, as the gloved hand of a magician. Where were we?
Sonic Leaf starts on complex bases. Each beat is exotic, artistic and unusual.
A sound of xylophone emerges. He announces he is going to tell us a story with African colors.
After the introduction, the evocation begins with burning bass lines. They strike us full force, fade out and come back again. The second movement introduces the track’s theme. A UFO takes us on the wing; direction the Big Bang. We are shaken and struck of frenzy, in trance. The Xylo calms down, saturates and stops suddenly. The synth naps rise up, action accelerates. The xylophone we saw birth during the introduction has transformed into a random laser which seems further and further.
The song’s theme takes a second breath in the middle of the track. The structure spotted in the first two thirds of the track comes back to end once again on a rhythmic kick of heavy naps. A very nervous track I can’t wait to see live.
Moewengflug seems more Techno. At least that’s the impression the introduction gives us. The melancholy rebirths quickly in this 4th track.
This title reminded me some of Gui Boratto’s productions I also admire. The calm reigns all along the track. Lanny tries here to bring us a bit of serenity through this track and it works. He brings some sort of retro choir samples, the kind you could have on some children keyboards. He also puts some notes of a distant piano. This track seems to be an evocation of what we can feel on the sea side, on a beach with a wind soft enough to appease us and yet strong enough to shroud us, where we can here the cry of the seagulls far away, and where you can only think about the nature surrounding us. A good musical journey, deep and slow.
Home = You, 5th and last track, is quite special.
Lany May remains faithful to the philosophy of this album and ends his piece on a quiet and sweet track. The instruments are well done and create a nice harmony. The naps are moving, the reverb is perfectly mastered. Yet this track is a bit to quiet for me. May gives us the impression to say goodbye. This is the track I have enjoyed the least. But even if the track miss some energy, it remains so fucking beautiful anyway.
So, in the end, what can we say about the listening of this first try in our beloved French label?
Lanny gave us here a beautiful and racy record.
We can feel he wanted to give a coherency to the whole. This coherency can be felt with a record beginning with a deep and energetic way, then the artist raises the pressure on the three following tracks, and he concludes on a serene, calm and tempered. Two tracks literally knocked me out: Heliopause, and Sonic Leaf.
Above that, the melancholy is spread along our listening, tenderly embracing us.
Lanny May remains more than ever faithful to his style: melancholic and hinted of psychedelic colors. He will know how to make him liked by the technophiles followers of a calmer and more experimental music, but maybe less by the fans of a more Dance floor techno. Indeed, despite the presence of a Sonic Leaf quite nervous, this record might miss a masterpiece of cold power, like the monuments Then 2069 or Drowned Bell, two tracks of the following album Art Love Iam. But this is just a detail since this record is a success regarding emotion and deepnessV.
Translation J.
B-Side:
Aucun commentaire:
Enregistrer un commentaire