Another review?? Oh my gawd...
Hey everyone, I was going to write a lengthy journal entry in which I graded summer camp activities (I'm still planning to do that), but I couldn't bring myself to do it because I've lately been so nervous about whether or not I'm going to be accepted to the Wright Institute to get my doctorate. Then I thought I would write a journal entry about how nervous I was over that, but someone advised me to stop thinking about it until I actually get the decision, which is probably best. I didn't want to go any more days without posting anything, for fear of losing my friends' attention, so I'm posting another review I wrote for the college paper.
This one is different from the last one I posted, in that it's for my small biweekly column entitled Music Box: Overlooked Albums. This was an idea I had, to replace one of the more stupid and useless features in the Arts section: Every two weeks I would write about an album that's been criminally overlooked. This week it's Marsen Jules' Les Fleurs, an album I've wanted to write about since I first heard it. I promise I'll give you an update on my admissions status (cross your fingers) and a proper, lovingly composed journal entry in the near future, but for now, please enjoy this review as a token of my thankfulness for sticking with me :)
Marsen Jules
Les Fleurs
[City Centre Offices; 2006]
Most of us were introduced to the young, baby-faced Marsen Jules when his track “Où La Nostalgie Habite” appeared on Pop Ambient 2007, the yearly compilation series released by ambient/techno stalwart Kompakt Records. It’s a high honor to make it onto a Kompakt compilation, and seeing a new artist on the label’s roster is a rare occurrence, so we listened carefully. “Où La Nostalgie Habite” was…pretty decent, with looped bells that shifted in and out of focus while vapor-trail ambience swirled around them. Like that song, Jules’ full-length albums Herbstlaub (2005) and Golden (2007) were nice enough but didn’t transcend the limitations of their instruments. Les Fleurs, which appeared in between those two records, somehow does exactly this, and the only explanation that I can conjecture as to how Jules hit such an Elysian peak before coming down again is some sort of divine intervention.
Combining Klimek’s plucked acoustic guitars, Ulf Lohmann’s luxuriant swaths of drone, and the rich Romantic classicality of Susumu Yokota’s Symbol, Les Fleurs is meant to appeal to the body-particularly the senses-as well as the soul. In this way, Les Fleurs is reminiscent of Wolfgang Voigt’s legendary and much less overlooked Gas project, in that the music is processed in such a manner as to penetrate the skin and become a part of you. “La Digitale Pourpre” demonstrates how such a phenomenon might happen to the person who’s commandeering the instruments: It sounds like someone making love to his guitar, as he plucks a single note with swelling intensity, knocks repeatedly on the soundboard, caresses a broken string, and places it all within an air-swept atmosphere like the lovers’ breaths intertwined. “La Digitale Pourpre” is some of the most sensuous ambient music ever created, but the following track, “Coeur Saignant,” is even better. With its radiant strings and pillow-soft ambience that hit like a shower of rose petals, Jules had to have written “Coeur Saignant” with heaven in mind.
Though Jules’ Myspace page notes that his music sounds like no one else (and he’s mostly right), Les Fleurs wouldn’t have been possible were it not for artists like William Basinski and Christian Fennesz-groundbreakers who married acoustic instrumentation and electronic equipment as though they were always meant for each other. The electronics on Les Fleurs aren’t audible; rather, they help the traditional instruments move in ways that previous recording methods simply didn’t allow. The echoing guitar-flurry of “Datura” reminds me of someone taking a Mice Parade song and turning it inside-out, allowing the gears and springs to splay outward into a beautiful mess. “Anémone” takes a similar approach but reforms its elements into shuddering, rapturous bursts.
Indeed, Les Fleurs is so ecstatic, so dedicated to its goal of evoking bodily pleasure, that listening to it can almost make me feel hedonistic, as though I should be paying for it in calories. Yet Jules’ remarkable ability to bring heaven to the earth is something to which thousands of artists wish they could lay claim, and as such, Les Fleurs fills me with gratitude every time it plays. In lieu of perfection, Les Fleurs tries for the unspeakably sublime and effortlessly, masterfully reaches it.
This one is different from the last one I posted, in that it's for my small biweekly column entitled Music Box: Overlooked Albums. This was an idea I had, to replace one of the more stupid and useless features in the Arts section: Every two weeks I would write about an album that's been criminally overlooked. This week it's Marsen Jules' Les Fleurs, an album I've wanted to write about since I first heard it. I promise I'll give you an update on my admissions status (cross your fingers) and a proper, lovingly composed journal entry in the near future, but for now, please enjoy this review as a token of my thankfulness for sticking with me :)
Marsen Jules
Les Fleurs
[City Centre Offices; 2006]
Most of us were introduced to the young, baby-faced Marsen Jules when his track “Où La Nostalgie Habite” appeared on Pop Ambient 2007, the yearly compilation series released by ambient/techno stalwart Kompakt Records. It’s a high honor to make it onto a Kompakt compilation, and seeing a new artist on the label’s roster is a rare occurrence, so we listened carefully. “Où La Nostalgie Habite” was…pretty decent, with looped bells that shifted in and out of focus while vapor-trail ambience swirled around them. Like that song, Jules’ full-length albums Herbstlaub (2005) and Golden (2007) were nice enough but didn’t transcend the limitations of their instruments. Les Fleurs, which appeared in between those two records, somehow does exactly this, and the only explanation that I can conjecture as to how Jules hit such an Elysian peak before coming down again is some sort of divine intervention.
Combining Klimek’s plucked acoustic guitars, Ulf Lohmann’s luxuriant swaths of drone, and the rich Romantic classicality of Susumu Yokota’s Symbol, Les Fleurs is meant to appeal to the body-particularly the senses-as well as the soul. In this way, Les Fleurs is reminiscent of Wolfgang Voigt’s legendary and much less overlooked Gas project, in that the music is processed in such a manner as to penetrate the skin and become a part of you. “La Digitale Pourpre” demonstrates how such a phenomenon might happen to the person who’s commandeering the instruments: It sounds like someone making love to his guitar, as he plucks a single note with swelling intensity, knocks repeatedly on the soundboard, caresses a broken string, and places it all within an air-swept atmosphere like the lovers’ breaths intertwined. “La Digitale Pourpre” is some of the most sensuous ambient music ever created, but the following track, “Coeur Saignant,” is even better. With its radiant strings and pillow-soft ambience that hit like a shower of rose petals, Jules had to have written “Coeur Saignant” with heaven in mind.
Though Jules’ Myspace page notes that his music sounds like no one else (and he’s mostly right), Les Fleurs wouldn’t have been possible were it not for artists like William Basinski and Christian Fennesz-groundbreakers who married acoustic instrumentation and electronic equipment as though they were always meant for each other. The electronics on Les Fleurs aren’t audible; rather, they help the traditional instruments move in ways that previous recording methods simply didn’t allow. The echoing guitar-flurry of “Datura” reminds me of someone taking a Mice Parade song and turning it inside-out, allowing the gears and springs to splay outward into a beautiful mess. “Anémone” takes a similar approach but reforms its elements into shuddering, rapturous bursts.
Indeed, Les Fleurs is so ecstatic, so dedicated to its goal of evoking bodily pleasure, that listening to it can almost make me feel hedonistic, as though I should be paying for it in calories. Yet Jules’ remarkable ability to bring heaven to the earth is something to which thousands of artists wish they could lay claim, and as such, Les Fleurs fills me with gratitude every time it plays. In lieu of perfection, Les Fleurs tries for the unspeakably sublime and effortlessly, masterfully reaches it.