This album is also some sort of a tribute to everything non-linear and unpredictable in the audio world, such as analogue circuits, tubes, spring reverb, tapes, all those things that made those pieces sound as they sound.
From soft melody to deafening noise
Throbbing patterns leading to a place way up in the mountains, the cover art was taken by Julien’s parents who are doing a lot of high mountain hiking. One of the photos that they brought back from one such visit is used for the album cover, you can see a frozen lake and all the snow around is covered with some pink sand from the Sahara desert, which is slightly pink. “This kind of thing happens once in a while.” I asked him about imagining the album, an unusual and hybrid music including many electronic forms, from soft melody to deafening noise.
“A collection of short ambient jams recorded for the sake of fun, that I decided to share with the world in the form of an album. Most of those are “one instrument one shots” as I like to call them. This means that those were recorded using only one synthesizer / instrument (half of the time a Roland MC-202, and different modular systems for the rest). You could think of this as being the opposite of my Stazma project, everything here is very simple, minimalistic and repetitive (hopefully in a good way though).”
This album is also some sort of a tribute to everything non-linear and unpredictable in the audio world, such as analogue circuits, tubes, spring reverb, tapes, all those things that made those pieces sound as they sound.
“A special thanks and homage to Vic Keary from Thermionic Culture Ltd. who passed away yesterday; nothing would have sounded the same without the Culture Vulture, rest in peace.” Another recent change in the composer’s life is the addition of a daughter to his family. “Anyway I hope you will enjoy this, I suggest you play this in your car while driving in the snow this winter.”
The first track visits with a light touch, pulsing melodic fragments, keeping a forward motion and wondering about the road ahead as the presence expands slowly, tossing off a constant beat while the pattern expands and weaves. “I” (4:04). Lights cut through the distance, searching and covering the whole horizon “II” (4:34), the pattern is a series of pulses that rotate. “III” (3:26). Starting a little more energized, also a series of pulses but these bend and smear colorfully. The energy continues to expand, keeping the same tempo.
Cautiously searching all around ::
Buzzing in, track 4 has a harsh and difficult launch that sweeps into less buzz and more patterns and beeps. Things get more and sometimes less stressed and fuzzy, and then stream into “IIII” (6:15). Cautiously searching all around, “IIIII” (5:06) explores the drama of the landscape, feeling for new variations the pattern becomes louder and more playful.
A new texture emerges for the next track, “IIIIII” (4:24) sounding almost underwater. The tempo is faster but the pressure is more moderate, even easy in places. As the track unfolds the pattern becomes wavy while keeping its pace.
Marching in from the invisible zones, “IIIIIII” (3:11) takes over, back and forth go the pulses, through a dark clanging beat. The train slowly goes by and gets smaller as it disappears back into the invisible zones. Next, a more dramatic atmosphere brings mystery and chattering or vibrating echoes. Soon we are moving to the pattern as it forms into a full strength, then fades back, “IIIIIIII” (5:15).
The longest track has the strangest name, “_________” (6:28), this one has the widest array of elements. I hear a dark cable under tension, and a throbbing machine that is housed in a nearby chamber that is closed. Then positions change and the machine is under pressure and the cable fades under the engine sounds. Now there are steady steps, the pace of walking, as the situation progresses the beats remain strong while the elements shift and change. The whole thing ends in a hissing wind that fades back to where we started.
Julien “Stazma” Guillot arrives from the same French stock as Monster X, Rotator and the infamous Peace Off imprint, he has been smashing up raves across the world for 10 years (since his first release on Peace Off in 2008) and is showing no signs of slowing down, bringing a jungle, acid, industrial, early breakcore and metal melded with a modern, tight production. Guillot is also a sound engineer at his own Electric Voyage Studio, half of the band Golden Fangs, a sound designer and a teacher in sound synthesis using modular synthesizer at Les Escales Buissonnières in Lyon.
The Electric Voyage Studio is an independent mastering and mixing studio run by Julien Guillot aka Stazma The Junglechrist / Repeat Eater, focused on bringing better sound quality to releases from the underground music scenes of this planet, and offers online courses on Home Studio Production, using Ableton Live as a creative workstation in the studio, and Sound synthesis, or how to create your own sounds from scratch using real or virtual modular synthesizers such as VCV Rack, and being able to use that knowledge on almost any other synthesizer.
“Helping a worldwide community of underground musicians to share their music with you.”
Pink Snow is available on Concrete Collage. [Bandcamp]
