A hauntingly cinematic, plaintive, solemn, reflective, and existential ambient work that will ravish fans of static and expressive drones of William Basinski, Philip Jeck and The Caretaker.
Ben Lukas Boysen is a sound designer and IDM electronic music wizard who works under the Hecq moniker. Active since the early 2000s, his music has been welcomed and signed by Hymen Records (an Ant-Zen sub-label). I discovered his work years ago with the album Bad Karma (Hymen, 2005), and am fond of the way environmentally noisy ambiences are mixed with moody soundscaping textures.
This new album demonstrates something quite different aesthetically, exploring infinitely blurry and emotionally compelling mindscapes found of processed, recycled, and altered sounds which give to the ensemble a ghostly cinematic touch. Decaying, deep, and minimalist electronic romanticism which explore the subjectivity of time—the feeling of loss and fractured memory. Treated samples and found sounds made of orchestral sequences alternate atmospheres of sorrowful grandeur and languid dusty melancholia.
Chansons de Geste is a hauntingly cinematic, plaintive, solemn, reflective, and existential ambient work that will ravish fans of static and expressive drones of William Basinski, Philip Jeck and The Caretaker. Easily competing as best experimental ambient album of the year, here we have a puzzling and intoxicating sadness in the world of ambient turntablism and hauntology sounds.
Chansons de Geste is available on Hymen.
