Geneva-based electronic producer D’Incise (real name Laurent Peter) is a member of that city’s Audioactivity music & visual collective and has spent the last eight years assembling an impressively large back catalogue of releases for a range of netlabels including Zymogen and Antisocial. This latest release Secheresse Plantee En Plein Ciel, his fourth album in total and his first for Gruenrekorder, sees Peter crafting a ‘blurred travel diary’ drawn from field recordings made in the Czech Republic and Poland, resulting in eleven sinister and atmospheric tracks veering from musique concrete through to dark ambient. Opening track ‘Le Fleau’ aptly sets the tone here, sending digitally-processed textures rippling out over a vast backdrop of rusty metallic sounds, what sounds like squealing wires of strings and distant snatches of sampled conversations, the entire tableau carrying a distinct sense of fear thanks to the addition of eerie, minor-key drones.
‘Regarder La Croix Plutot Que La Poutre’ meanwhile ventures further towards dark, industrial-edged IDM in the vein of Detritus or Raoul Sinier, with spidery distorted breakbeats slicing their way against a wash of ominous, glittering synth strings, the distant sound of digitally-manipulated conversation creeping through as if overhead from another room, before ‘Secheresse Plantee En Plein Ciel’ sees crackling micro-dub influences coming to the surface beneath a hypnotically graceful backdrop of humming harmonic pads, distant bleeping synthetic tones and Geiger counter-esque popping digital errors. Throughout this entire album, there’s a palpable atmosphere conjured that evokes the sense of creeping unease, and while there are certainly plenty of undeniably beautiful and delicate moments along the way, the danger’s never lurking too far from the surface. An excellent and evocative album from D’Incise that will certainly please fans of industrial-tinged ambience and dark musique concrete.
Chris Downton
