Today we explore more adventurous listening on the edge of Form from Julien Beau and Mokuhen, with their new release Paysage accidenté #2 out now on Tsuku Boshi. Beau, a sound artist who blends field recordings and prepared acoustics, teams up once again with Tsuku Boshi’s Laurent Guérel, and together they construct an ambient listening experience akin to musique concrčte. Picking up where Paysage accidenté #1 left off, that is drifting thru the outer sonic realms where sound and “music” are only casual acquaitances, this newest offering from the pair, like the first, is also inspired by the surrealistic drawings of the artist Chloé Poizat–one of which can be seen above.
Sometimes hovering on the edge of the hearable, the tracks on Paysage accidenté #2 are just as likely to dip into near silence as they are to build up into a steady drone of accumulating sound. Utilizing a diverse palette that includes hints of acoustic instrumentation, field recordings, and indecipherable forms of digital detritus, these tracks follow their own inner logic in a dream-like flow of audio events. On the opening cut, “La rive dans le noir” reverberating wind and streams of noise wash up on the shore before a collection of strange night instruments chatter in the grass like marauding insects. “Fanto?me” is haunted by a shadow of piano, as unidentifiable electronic devices in the room begin to turn on and off as though controlled by curious ghosts. Later, “Les pleurs du vent” hums in a lonely wind before gathering into a soft and forlorn howl, while dry twigs crackle in a static fire just out of sight. Throughout its’ nine tracks, Paysage accidenté #2 encourages a rapt listening as it waxes and wanes between clouds of activity and simmering negative space.
