Loden – Valeen Hope (Mush)

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Originally released in 1995 on Dutch label Eat This, Valeen Hope is the first full length effort from Loden. It was reissued this year through Mush, who seem to be putting some serious effort into releasing material from other parts of the world into the US market, perhaps most notably Qua’ first two albums.

When I first listened to this a couple of months ago I was fairly indifferent. I thought it was an ambitious but ultimately tiresome collection of shitty sounding synths. But I’m very glad to report that persistence has paid off in this case and I’m now finding this to be a beautiful record. It’s dense, heavily layered, and the tracks develop from innocuous beginnings into swirling walls of sound that seem to cover the whole frequency spectrum. It’s a big, icy, crisp sound. “Tenofour’ is a definite highlight, with its restrained flute treatment. Check out the clip below, it may do a better job of explaining what it’s all about than this review. “Komop’ is pure horror-scape, with creepy processed gamelan type sounds, backed by scary orchestral horns and string sweeps. “Tears for the Thirsty’ is a lovely sketch consisting of woozy Boards of Canada-esque synths, and neck cracking boom bap.

I still have some minor reservations about this, specifically that at some points it sounds uncannily like the inside of my head whilst afflicted with post-gig tinnitus, and I can’ help but think, enough. But overall it is sincere, affecting, and faintly epic electronic music from this Dutchman.

Tom Smith

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