Bleupulp conjugates dub and techno in his own special way, fastidiously and inquisitively.
[Release page] Maxime Tanguay from Lévis, just across the St. Lawrence River from Québec City, has a substantial amount of music available online, most of it under the name Bleupulp, his abstract dub project. Abstract, but far from haphazard or sloppy. Bleupulp conjugates dub and techno in his own special way, fastidiously and inquisitively.
It actually doesn’t sound right at the very beginning, sputtering and clanking like an old jalopy but “You Check on Me” eventually slips sweetly into gear. With second track “A Wall of Intentions” we are in very familiar, dub techno teritory, but as Small Places unfolds, it grows edgier, tendon-twitching rather than head-bobbing.
Tanguay’s dedication to making the tiniest detail matter polishes each note to a gleam and brings out a deep, honey warm glow. As electronic musician, he’s the Tin Man after he got his heart and a sly sense of humour to go with it, like on the bubbly, damn-the-torpedoes “Home Made Submarine” or rubber-band, left-handed melody of “De-Ca-V1.”
A simple, metronomic beat skips across the eleven-minute centrepiece “Patience Granted” while pea crabs skitter across desert sands shifting like earthbound northern lights. Its appendix, “Slight Patience with You,” is a footnote so illuminating it makes you go back to the main text with renewed curiosity. He has a keen knack for forging wholes out of opposites, like the deep, rumbling roll of bass against pachinko notes pinging their way down into the swallowing echo of “Toning Down Anxiety.”
Like the best French-Canadian cinema and literature, Small Places has the ring of intelligence and twinkle in the corner of its eye to match its distinctive clarity.
Small Places is available on Pertin_nce.
