You’ll Be Safe Forever is an absolute joy for both old-school fans and those new to Locust, and it’s a testament to Mark van Hoen’s undimmed talent for the genre that he can still create such compelling, timeless but equally “of a time” music as this.
The last time we heard from Locust we were living in a completely different musical climate free from the ravages of the internet and by the time Wrong was released as a suitably pretentious, play-both-at-the-same-time two-disc edition on the ponderous and increasingly esoteric Touch label, both R&S and its sub-label Apollo—once Locust’s spiritual home—had ceased trading.
Twelve years have passed since then, the newly energized R&S and Apollo are trading once again in radically different forms, and Mark van Hoen is is releasing a new album as Locust on Editions Mego, following up the critically acclaimed and deeply strange The Revenant Diary for the label under his own name in 2012.
The debut Locust album Weathered Well, released way back in 1994, was a dark ambient techno crossover, but every subsequent release headed in an increasingly vocal-centric direction, culminating in the retro, chorus-girl song stylings of the stereoscopically crazy Wrong in 2001.
The accompanying blurb tells us that the origins of You’ll Be Safe Forever are rooted in a live set he performed with Louis Sherman for WFMU radio in 2012, after which it became obvious to him that the material sounded frighteningly close to his Locust work. This material, together with previously recorded tracks dating as far back as 2006 formed the bulk of the album, with subsequent sessions filling the gaps as well as expanding and finessing those live recordings.
So why all this detailed referencing of the past? Well, because the strange thing about You’ll Be Safe Forever is that it’s so firmly entrenched in the Locust sound of the late nineties that it may as well have been made back then. It plays like a lost album that would fit perfectly in between Truth Is Born Of Arguments and Morning Light, possessed of the experimental edginess the former and the hazy ambiance of Weathered Well, the traditional song structures missing but replaced by edgy, looped vocals and samples. Which is not to suggest that the album sounds dated – little of van Hoen’s work does – merely that it is so authentic to that period that it never feels self-referencing or like a modern take or pastiche, which just adds to the overall eeriness of this gorgeous album.
As always with van Hoen’s work as Locust, you should expect the unexpected, with every turn through You’ll Be Safe Forever‘s bustling backstreet souks full of seething unease, the ambiance heady with opiates and spices, and the tone fueled by a thinly-veiled, heady and hedonistic eroticism. The lush but awkward textures and breathy vocals give the whole thing a dreamlike, slow motion quality that is positively Lynchian, even narcotic, slowly administering a whopping dose of doors-of-perception opening pharmaceuticals.
The woozy, constantly refocusing “Fall For Me” quickly injects the first dose of psychedelic compounds, but moments after the brief intermission of “I Hear A Quiet Voice,” live drums, tribal rhythms and detuned synths kick in together with glitched DSP vocals and mystical pads to form an unusually aggressive but otherwise typical template for the album. By the time Jennifer Restivo seductively whispers “Do not fear. Come inside and join me. You’ll be safe forever” over the slightly off-kilter soprano vocals and eastern, harem-like percussion of “Do Not Fear,” it wouldn’t be unusual if consciousness was slipping away.
You’ll Be Safe Forever contains a number of meditative little interlude tracks that run at just over a minute or so. Thrown in without care or planning, this kind of track can often feel intrusive or inconsequential but van Hoen is a past master at these. “The Worn Gift,” “Remember” and “More Like Prayer Than Science” have all the hazy, worn-out, Super8 nostalgia of a Boards of Canada track, distorted rhodes keys and guitar strings.
The album is downright weird in spots, the squawking, parakeet like vocals of the arpeggio-friendly “Just Want You” or the improvised, pitch-bent and quivering tones of “The Washer Woman” replete with eastern strings and chanting bathed in midnight-blue reverb. Only “The Flower Lady” sends the flow of the album into a holding pattern, the plucked strings and trip-hop beats mixed with nasal, eastern repeated vocal aah over-extended to the point where it virtually stalls. Half the length and this would have been perfect. “Subie” stumbles and tumbles over itself in rippling waves, leaving brightly coloured images trails in it’s wake and should you have proven resistant to it’s seductive vapours, You’ll Be Safe Forever ensures there’s no escape as the whispering voices and mirage inducing heat-wave pads of “Corporal Genesis” insist you lie back and relax as thick plumes of smoke finally overwhelm the senses.
You’ll Be Safe Forever is an absolute joy for both old-school fans and those new to Locust, and it’s a testament to Mark van Hoen’s undimmed talent for the genre that he can still create such compelling, timeless but equally “of a time” music as this.
You’ll Be Safe Forever is out now on Editions Mego. [Release Page]
