Bleep

Huge slabs of icy electronics from Finnish experimentalist Mika Vainio and French avant garde musician Franck Vigroux on their debut recording Léger Soleil. The result of a three-year recording process initiated by a live collaboration in Paris in 2012, the album arrives via Cosmo Rhythmatic, the Berlin-based imprint run by Italian techno trio Shapednoise, Ascion and D. Carbone. Whereas Vainio has created a clear profile through his own Sähkö Recordings over the years, the collaboration is Vigroux’s third appearance on the label. Taking cues from the manipulated guitar soundscapes akin to Vainio’s Kilo (2013), the duo paints a glacial soundscape on the verge of disintegration with sharp-edged blocks of noise as menacing soundmarks. From the sound of scattered floes breaking off to a low definition drum machine beat over the warped drone of ‘Ravages’ to the dramatically evolving seventh chord harmonies of ‘Parabole’ and the trapped voices underneath the half-frozen surfaces in the cave-like world of ‘Le Souterrain’.