In a world where so much sounds the same, birthed from the same influences, using the same tools to deliver the same result, French artist Golem Mecanique stands apart. Her work exists in more spiritual and more experiential realms. It’s a place where folkloric traditions, ritual and the avant garde collide. Her music is dense and powerful with her periodic ethereal droning wails and whispers, organ and a drone box (whatever that is), combining to create music that feels like its summoning. What it’s conjuring is unclear, but it does feel attached to something greater, something archaic and that gives it a special kind of power.
This is heavy drone music. It not just holds you but envelops you. It connects you to something else. Whether that’s something inside you or out probably depends on the listener, but its impossible to ignore. This is durational music, with two pieces at almost 20 minutes each, there’s plenty of room to listen intently drift away, come back and transcend.
She’s joined by folk artist Marion Cousin (Jules et Jim) on voice & harmonium but her contribution is very difficult to discern as it feels subsumed by the grand drone. There’s so much going on here that I don’t understand. It’s powerful, beautiful, transcendent and very very unique.
