Mark Van Hoen – Invisible Threads (Touch)

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Mark Van Hoen, quite renowned under his alias Locust and a founding member of Seefeel, returns with the first release under his own name on the legendary label Touch in more than 20 years.

Invisible Threads is a cohesive collection of tracks made after touring around the West Coast of USA with artists like Philip Jeck, Simon Scott, Daniel Menche, Lee Bannon, Kara-Lis Coverdale, among others. It’s also inspired by other Touch artists and by his collaborative project Drøne with Mike Harding. The album is deep and emotional, with sustained strings and textures floating around in a shady, spectral way on the opener ‘Weathered’. A more drone aspect on the echoes of the fading ‘Dark Night Sky Paradox’, and the layered and meditative ‘The Yes_No Game’.

You can also feel nostalgia on the evoking ‘Aether’, one of our favorites, which also includes hints of a piano and makes you want to play it again and again. But then it can also get darker and more heavily loaded, like on ‘Flight Of Fancy’, which is reiterative, expanding and rising on its intentions. But same as the last mentioned song might sound thicker, the closing title ‘Instable’ can also feel thin in a way, with recurrent wind-like sounds unleashing digital howls that yearn for a time that might have not existed. A more oneiric vibe can be perceived on the calm ‘Opposite Day’, which forms melodies over a bass sound that roots back to the earth. Field recordings of what seems to be falling water and outdoor sounds complete the palette. No analogue synthesizers were used on this album, which is a rare circumstance on Van Hoen’s recent recordings.

Invisible Threads is the type of album that, similar to other notable releases on Touch, must be heard with a serious soundsystem, or at least some decent headphones. The experience might turn trascendent.

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