Xenolith is a dark vision from the mind of Valanx. The bucolic tones of nature, the progression of modernity and the thrill of the metropolis are put under the Valanx lens, a lens which sees the charcoal silhouette of all.
Just before the end of the year Arne Weinberg announced a change. In a press release the Munich man declared an end to over a decade of Detroit and a shelving of his Arne Weinberg project. Weinberg sited the limitations of the club sound and a desire for something new as the reason for his departure from Techno. From the ashes of this demise a new Weinberg project has rose, Valanx. This new ambient and experimental pseudonym has come of age with the Xenolith LP.
Behind the doors of Xenolith lies a dense forest of electronics. “Encrypt/Decrypt” is a dark, atmospheric piece. From a mechanical undergrowth come haunting tones. Unseen eyes pierce the thick foliage in “Perception Decline,” unsettling the listener. Behind the thick trunks of bass and reaching tweaks awaits an inchoate ritual, one of primitive sounds and darkness. Valanx paints an audio vision akin to Herzog’s “Aguirre,” a keen and invisible power lurking in the peripheries. There is an organic style to Valanx’s early movements. Smoke stacks soon rise from the impassable synth jungle, the sky inked by the industrial rumblings of “Questioning Reality.” The mechanised burbling of “Last One On Earth” projects steel and concrete into the gathering clouds, bass sinking below simmering static. The sound has echoes of some of Further Records more abstract moments, or the epic moods depicted by Kaval on their Sky of Mirrors LP. Naturalistic notes battle with the onslaught of cold machine sounds, “Ruune” meshes both disparate parts in an absorbing analogue soup. The moon sits slanted, clouds smothered in the muffled claustrophobia of “Abysmal Distortions.” The vinyl episode ends there, but the CD contains four more entries. “We Feed the Machine” is a silicon shattered piece of electronics. The ambience is still present, but amongst the drone are whispers of electronica. Fractured beats begin to enter “The Pilman Radiant” before the air once again saturates for a return to the savagery of the synth swamps. But, it is the city’s tunnels that Valanx come back to for the finale. “Proto-genesis” sees blunted stone absorbing and reflecting, spasmodic shudders and metal droplets hug the gloom. The listener left, alone.
Xenolith is a dark vision from the mind of Valanx. The bucolic tones of nature, the progression of modernity and the thrill of the metropolis are put under the Valanx lens, a lens which sees the charcoal silhouette of all. A palette of raw sounds, brimming with primal emotion, is employed for Xenolith. Creature comforts are not present here, just the creature. Valanx stalks, intimidates, unsettles and intrigues. Clouded and dyspeptic, harsh and elementary, refined and considered—Valanx takes the contrast, pares it down to illustrate the true facade. A quality excursion into electronic experimentation.
Xenolith is available on Diametric.
