Electrypnose - Subliminal Melancholies

DeathPosture, Jul 07, 2006

Electryppin’…

Out on Germany’s Ajana Records, is the third album by Swiss sound sorcerer Vince Le Barde. This productive, elusive producer released his wonderful 2nd album Le Tireur De Ficelles on Peak Records only 3 months prior to this… The difference of course, lies in Le Tireur De Ficelles being an up-tempo danceable album, whereas Subliminal Melancholies is chilled downbeat stuff… Well, on the surface at least! More about that later…

Ever since his excellent debut album Brain Stretching (ResonantEarth.com 2005) I’ve been a big fan of Vince’s musical output and pretty much everything I’ve heard from this versatile producer has been excellent… Including his very interesting chill tracks released on the two A Magical Journey compilations (Ajana Records 2005/2006) + his highly original chill track Bas Le Masques running at an incredible 193 BPMs per minute closing up his last album… All in all, this, his first downtempo album is destined to greatness… Let’s find out!

With this album I got exactly what I hoped for: A full Electrypnose album that continued the trend Vince started on those few selected downbeat tracks he already released…By that I mean a clash of soothing, floating, mellow organic sounds enhanced with vivid experimentation especially in the rhythm sections… The off-key, often distorted and industrial AFX-like rhythm signatures were already a major factor on his last album Le Tireur De Ficelles, but Vince manages to draw on the same influences on this downbeat album… That also means, that for serious chillage or even sleeping this album might be a little too hectic – but for lucid chilling it’s very good! Sure, there’s a couple of tracks that are not as good as the rest, but as usual with Electrypnose, the quality level is VERY high and the competition for stand-out tracks is fierce! In short all that means, that this in an extremely well executed and very mature album! I dig it!

It’s no secret that I wasn’t very impressed with the last artist album Ajana Records released: the hugely disappointing Endless Universe by Psyfactor… But with this little gem, everything is forgotten… The artwork has also improved at great deal and all in all I’m very satisfied with this… Fans of eclectic downbeat will need to check this out, as will fans of psy-downbeat/IDM crossover stuff… Purists will have to look elsewhere though… I’m not a purist though – and this is another subliminal Electrypnose album… Enjoy!

Favourites: 1(!), 2(!!), 6, 7, 8(!), 10, 11

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