United Jnana
Those who are lucky enough to have heard the CD-R will know that it isa hypnotic combination of eerie, layered female vocals floatingdelicately around seething, sexual inhalations, barking dogs andpsychedelic, vibratory shudders of mysterious origin. It's a thrillingand magical 20 minutes, climaxing with the eardrum-piercing squall of aWWII air raid siren and the dive-bombing blitzkrieg of warplanes. Sequence No. 2uses some the same elements, but subtracts the overt sexuality, thecanine outbursts and the Nazi attack, leaving only 18 minutes ofoverlapping, interwoven vocals from Amantine Dahan Steiner and IsabelleGaborit, all of which are exclusively en francais. StevenStapleton and Colin Potter utilize the various utterances, hums,whispers, recitations, laughs, breathy coos, and vibrational oms of thetwo women to create a suggestive ambient tangle of ghostly, gossamerthread. The vocals create soothing undulations, tantalizinglylinguistic but staying just out of reach of full comprehension,improbably panning around the stereo channels with a logic that wouldonly make sense in a dream. Indeed, the album is ideal for headphonelistening, provided you don't mind two disembodied voices spookilyreciting French words in your ears for almost an hour. The title ofthis album and its predecessor seem to be consciously retrogradeallusions to classic musique concrete pieces (i.e. Edgar Varese's"Poeme Electronique"), even though it's much more likely that Potterand Stapleton have used digital means, rather than analog, to createthese highly-constructed, multilayered compositions. Theblack-and-white cover art seems a little grainy and chintzy, but it'shard to tell if this was intentional or not. This album was used asbetween-set music at the recent run of Current 93 concerts at a Torontochurch, and it does seem to operate best as background music. Thoughthe entire album is undeniably beautiful and haunting, it refuses todevelop, transform or build drama during its considerable length. Itends right where it begins, and in between is more of the same. No oneis going to accuse Echo Poeme of being Steven Stapleton's mostexciting work, but it does have a consistently ravishing, gorgeous,mesmerizing beauty that makes it very worthwhile tangent. - Jonathan Dean
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