CD – Hymen
Operating under the moniker VNDL, Philippe Vandal, a young Montreal-based electronic investigator, released his first record “Something For Someone” on Abstract Reflections (an EP now available as a free download). The artist has not moved far from those organic and lively cuts in this latest offering, with its rarefied interlacements, sinuously evolving guitar loops and field recordings. Vandal has created some very coherent environments, rich in digital manipulations and mysterious mixes. The sound is dense, adventurous, a little bent in on itself and gloomy, and he doesn’t shun electro-acoustic techniques and new sound mutations of environmental forms, stutters and artfully edited hesitations. This is a research that reverberates with a contemplative attitude, with light sound dysfunctions well balanced in the passages. There is differentiation in the layers and tonal harmonies; solid even in the most hidden folds, where guitar fragments and post-rock cacophonies emerge, before being routed towards other trickles of imagination. Larval influences are allowed to sketch the horizon of a very assorted audio experience, but one that remains very consistent and intense. In “Gahrena: Paysages Électriques”, the balance between the more improvised sequences and the meticulously organized compositional structures keeps the listener poised on a shaky ridge, oscillating on both sides, without ever indulging in easy appeasements or affected solutions.