Glitch is counterbalanced with contorted bass, alien landscapes, layered and abstract tonal shifts as VNDL unravels obscured musical passages.
Philippe Vandal (aka VNDL) hailing from Montreal, Canada lines up his debut with Germany’s long-standing and well respected Hymen Records. Gahrena: Paysages électriques—influenced by the likes of Fennesz, Richard Devine and Access To Arasaka—opens his account with Hymen on an abstract note and is clearly impacted by the above-mentioned sound sculptors.
Processed and organic guitar strings flash between selected tracks as field recordings are manipulated subtly and driven through loops of ambient, post-noise fluttering. Static buzzing, electrical clicks, pops and whirs are surrounded by scraped layers of ambience. Scattered patterns (ie. “Crunx” and “Bragg (with Nebulo)”) are exposed via mechanical energy rhythms and jagged slabs of atmosphere. Glitch is counterbalanced with contorted bass, alien landscapes, layered and abstract tonal shifts as VNDL unravels obscured musical passages. Offthesky’s textured “Nikohn” remix disperses eerily fragrant sheets, Pleq’s assistance on “Night at Slaeg” offers disjointed instrumental sound-collages and c0ma’s remix of “Novar” dampens the percussive groove and drowns them in synthesized fluctuations. As a result, Gahrena: Paysages électriques migrates effectively into the memory banks as a fluid piece of audio artwork. Creating leftfield electronic music might be VNDL’s strong-point, however, his over-arching themes are connected with emotive experimental remnants that stand the test of time. Considering VNDL has only been on the scene for a few years, he’s already lining up his next release and shows no signs of fading into obscurity.
Gahrena: Paysages électriques is available on Hymen. [Release page]
