You have to admit, that if you believed everything you read about Dead Cities, Red Seas & Lost Ghosts, you’d be under the impression that it was one of the most prodigious and pioneering events in the last twenty years. And whilst everyone may be waxing lyrical about the swelling, intergalactic, lush and pastoral 4/4 beats – when we do calm down we may begin to notice that for all its interplanetary, most extraordinary craft – it’s a fairly arduous and difficult listen. Looking towards the clouds like a swirly space-cadet in a cloud of wacky-tobacco it feels good. Playing it on a Monday morning when your Windows Media Player is playing up is quite another listen entirely. So lets just say it’s context sensitive. This is mood music: the same burbling melancholic beast that has on occasions, sprung from the loins of Spiritualized, Mogwai, Tangerine Dream, Air, and Sigur Rós and not always with pleasing results.
Tinny, erratic drum-machines, squelching and parping synthesizers, squiggly anagrams of voice-samples and oblique narratives, interminable single notes and humming strings. For the most part it’s quite beautiful, but on occasions it begins to tire, and at nearly an hour in length, it’s hardly surprising.
Band members, Anthony Gonzalez and Nicolas Fromageau, have found the perfect label to pursue their lofty space-dreams in the cutting edge Gooom label in their native France. And should you not tire of their floaty and whirring meltdown into oblivion, you may provide the perfect ears.
Definitely one for all those noise enthusiasts who delighted in Jason Pierce’s ‘Pure Phase’ and ‘Lazer Guide Melodies’. Just avoid the peer pressure that reconstructs it as a work of genius.