Ensemble Economique – In Silhouette

ensembleeconomique

CD – Denovali

Behind the moniker of Ensemble Economique there is the Californian Brian Pyle and soon our memory goes to his project Starving Weirdos, featuring Merrick McKinlay. He is a very prolific artist: his career started already more than ten years ago, with more than fifteen albums already released, all of them characterized by ambient and drone music, dream-pop echoes and sweet electronics manipulations. In his last work In Silhouette the first track, “In The Clear Blue Waters Of Memory”, soon shows some dilated and synthetic sequences. The track was also featuring Jung An Tagen, that is Stefan Kushima, whose production always presents some hallucinated and crosscut inspiration, like in this track too. The storytelling is fluctuating, dark and suspended, full of elliptic drones, as in “Battle Cry” or hit by a voice full of effects and whispers, as in “Gonna Get Right With God, Right After This Next Cigarette”, a track inspired by a mysterious, noir and hypnotic charm, vaguely post-apocalyptic and space. “I Can See The Light, The Edge Of Forever” is more naif and western-style, reminding us some Morricone compositions. This track too presents a whispered tune and a simple melody, a little bit sick and obsessive. “You In The Horizon” is the last track: a Gainsbourgh style score, which sounds contemporary and abstract due to elements as sideral slowdowns, well-structured iterations and nightly winces and is full of movie soundtracks suggestions and dark-wave references. Bryan Pyle uses few elements but is able to fully involve the listener: his work goes beyond the dichotomies minimalism-maximalism, harmonies-dissonances, project-improvisation. In this moment of great style confusion, this is already something. From the experimental enclaves we expect they go beyond the genres and the poetry, and this is usually their main aspect but here we find an authentic talent, maybe not for everybody, who surprises us for his simplicity. The album was released by Denovali, a label which recently is producing many works. The label catalogue includes both niche and less extreme productions, but the musical production is always well refined.

 

Ensemble Economique – In Silhouette