“This album has to be the most unexpected and the best EM so far this year. For fans of vintage psy-cosmic rock with a zest of modern beats”
1 The Intergalactic Corridor B3-B4 14:31 2 Nitro's Neurosoup Concoction 9:24 3 Fratman Glancy & The Explorer Society 7:25 4 Mr. Natural Amusement Park at 6 a.m. 11:02 5 The Disputable Beauty of Miss V.Z. 13:27 6 The Sweet Turned Sour 19:44 Deserted Island Music | DIM-004 (CD 75:33) (V.F.) (Psybient, Berlin School)
A muffled explosion which is transformed into a long guttural humming, a voice behind a wooden curtain which mumbles words of which the echoes form some jerky lines of words and riffs of an electric six-strings which roll in tight loops. It's this sound decoration which introduces the hypnotic psychedelic ballad of The Intergalactic Corridor B3-B4. Delicate electronic effects accompany these riffs which flow now into a harmonious approach that we can easily compared with the play of Manuel Gottsching's guitar. In fact, other guitar chords are joining the structure in order to deepen the melodious play of Petter Janse, while a bass line spits its pulsations which resound more and more. And always this synth which throws music filters loaded of toxic colors and which encircle the spheroidal ballet of The Intergalactic Corridor B3-B4 which little by little run away towards Nitro's Neurosoup Concoction. You like these titles? You understand anything here? They are also unusual as the music of Mäläskä, the last project of Remy which was born in spring 2016 around improvised sessions with the guitarist Petter Janse. In a universe which plunges us into the psychedelic acid of the Ohr years, UNCLE JIM'S CIDNEY FACTORY is of a breathtaking boldness. Boldness because Remy and Petter Janse revisit a style that several people considered so weakened as not necessary with an approach where the genres of Ashra and Amon Düül leak out in a climate of modernity. If at times we downright have the impression to dive into this psychedelic universe without contrasts of the 70's, this musical tale inspired by college dropouts of Michigan embrace the perfumes of contemporary from Klaus Schulze or a Brian Eno darker and darker than ever. Built around a dozen hours of improvised sessions, like in the good times, the essence of UNCLE JIM'S CIDNEY FACTORY is almost pure because the duet left it as it stands during the final mixing. From where its unbearable and totally inexplicable charms.
Ringings and effects of bass, one would say the slow movements of a submarine stuck in an underwater storm, get Nitro's Neurosoup Concoction from the somnambulistic claws of The Intergalactic Corridor B3-B4. The movement is more agitated with good electronic percussions which bribe the electronic universe sculptured on iridescent hoops and on faded voices that only the imagination can decode. The rhythm is lively, as these beautiful technoïd ritornellos of Manuel Gottsching. A parallel that we just can't ignore, because the essence of Ashra founder is omnipresent in the play of Petter Janse. Voices of spectres bicker over the loops of rhythms while a sequencer unstitches a fast and jerky line. The rhythm is divided into 3 very different parts where the techno and the dance take the stake over an electronic structure which in the end will bring Nitro's Neurosoup Concoction towards the quiet and the dark ambient Fratman Glancy & The Explorer Society. Here, the breaths are hollow, and the layers of church organ are very disturbing if we are afraid of the dark moods. We float between Schulze and Eno here due to the apathetic of the atmospheres which will scatter some lost chords which will structure the base of the rhythm as sneaky than a dance of a big pelican on acid of Mr. Natural Amusement Park at 6 a.m. I adore this title and the first impression which comes to my mind is this music of Matthias Thurow in his insurmountable Cornucopia. But I am not at the end of my surprises! The Disputable Beauty of Miss V.Z. is going to throw you of the wall with its very aggressive rock where atmospheres of a very contemporary Klaus Schulze are floating, at the level of the synth. Kind of the XYZ years. It's doubtless one of the most intelligent electronic rock that I heard. The balance between the very energetic rhythm, suspended by a creative blend between the percussions and the oscillating pulsations of the bass sequences, and the effects of synth, of which the elastic solos are like electronic lassoes which want to snatch up time, is a real delight for the lovers of music and of sounds. The Sweet Turned Sour presents us a heavy introduction of nebulous ambiences with distant hollow breezes which make hatch a delicate string of gleaming sequences. The keys cavort in a mesmerizing minimalist approach and eventually construct a delicate melody which is weaver of earworm. We would think to be in the territories of Remy's masterpiece, Exhibition of Dreams, but with even more disturbing effects. If some strange knockings, one would say riffs which sneeze, stain the charms of The Sweet Turned Sour, the guitar of Petter Janse orientates its beauty with thin ethereal lines and sighing tears while the title climbs more and more the tops of intensity. And little by little, the discord arises from this amplitude which encloses this fascinating and obsessing ascent of The Sweet Turned Sour.
UNCLE JIM'S CIDNEY FACTORY is part of those albums that nobody expected, and which leaves definitively a mark. The balance between the cosmic rhythm, the approach of techno dance and the floating atmospheres is perfect and makes the album flourishes between our ears like a suite of presents all so beautiful one of the others. Mäläskä; a name to be held and UNCLE JIM'S CIDNEY FACTORY is an album which is necessary to possess and to listen to, if possible but not essential, with a good pair of earphones to facilitate this magnificent journey between the times of a music which never seems to be in lack of resources... As long as there are artists like Remy, and there is, EM is in good hands. Just needs to sharpen our ears!
Sylvain Lupari (September 8th, 2016) ****¾*
Available at Remy Stroomer Bandcamp
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