Franck Vigroux – Ballades Sur Lac Gelé

franck-vigroux-ballades-sur-lac-geleok

CD – raster

Mika Tapio Vainio, who passed away in April 2017, was one of the musicians and experimenters who most influenced the new electronic aesthetic of the nineties, grafting glitch elements and fomenting a minimal but aggressive techno, infused with distorted frequencies and melodic atmospheres. Vainio, both in Pan Sonic and under his moniker Ø, is also significant to the history of Raster-Noton, a label that has long since chosen to separate, returning to its origins as two separate entities. Franck Vigroux and Mika Vainio played together at Berghain and also collaborated in a live performance at La Muse en Circuit and for “Luxure”, perhaps the last live recording before the death of Vainio. “Drive”, the first track of Ballades Sur Lac Gelé, dates back to the last period of collaboration between the two, although the setting seems to us more dynamic and rhythmically free, with the presence of some ‘space-vintage’ elements. In short, it is to Mika Vanio that this track and the entire album are dedicated, but Vigroux does not abdicate his personal touch, made up of synthetic starts and varied modulations, of futuristic quotes and impending dystopian flows. The following, “Cygnus X-1”, is more elegiac but exhibits just as much energy and sci-fi treatment, while in “Ritournelle” it is the more dreamlike and experimental Vigroux articulating minimal electronic modulations in a highly emotional riff. In short, the alternation of moments and interactions between the different parts are always distributed with skill and remarkable narrative aptitude, relying on a studied succession of melodic and rhythmic sequences. The album closes with “Atotal” where Vigroux turns his hand to the crudest and most dissonant repertoire of which he is capable, reminding us once more of his harsh and hyper-vivid collaborations with Vainio. Franck Vigroux cultivates the suggestion inherent in the title of a walk on a frozen lake and is at ease giving life to settings kept vivid by a constant tension. At the same time, he is able to set up some elegiac passages and dynamic resonances, which we image were even more functional and creative in the live performances.

 

Franck Vigroux – Ballades Sur Lac Gelé