The sounds of 25 year old Frenchman Julien Locquet could almost be considered jazz or folk, if not for the fact that they are then digitally reprocessed and reconstructed through the laptop. The result tends to owe much to the gentle melodic washes of sound that Mego stalwart Fennesz has been experimenting in recent times, though Locquet is also dabbling with vocals and song structures. It’s an endearing, giddy mash of double bass, guitar, piano and vocals that struggles valiantly onward as various blips and skips and other digital material attempt to impede its journey. It’s all assembled rather haphazardly, with the collision of shifting ill-fitting textures producing a busy yet intimate wash of sounds. Whilst he seems to have attacked structures from the inside out, Locquet’s work is notable in its ability to retain some of the intimacy and emotion of the analogue material. Abstract and at times quite surreal, Mani never comes close to the level of carnage often associated with other laptop composers, being quite restrained and literally bubbling with emotion.
Bob Baker Fish
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