Racine uses billowing, amorphous sound as a backdrop for melodic improvisations of various instruments, both acoustic and digitally manipulated. Their creations are pop song length instrumentals that meander, peak, and decay in a highly dynamic, tightly packed box. Surprises abound for those who listen patiently, and moments of the sublime cut through like a glade in a forest.
Danse Noire
"Quelque Chose Tombe I" and "Quelque Chose Tombe II" are sister pieces that invoke the spectral and chaotic, as well as the placid and beautiful. They roam from high energy to low, creating motion with little melodic vignettes that move the piece forward. This is music that sounds like its setting is the streets, perhaps under a bridge that has seen better days.
"Sujet" is a song pierced by clamoring woodwinds and electric keys, very tense and chaotic. The sense of continuous motion throughout the song is like walking through a gallery of the shocking and the cerebral. "Désordre Baroque" is a song that sounds the most like an orchestral ensemble, with its winds and plucked strings. It evokes nostalgia with samples from early computer voices of the 1980's. The flute and xylophone give it a certain romantic light.
"Geranium" makes ample use of that reversed sample effect, bringing to mind shifting clouds and urban landscapes. The closing track, "Sans Titre," is a reverent hymnal to some sacred outdoor space graced by birds, settling idyllically in my mind.
With Quelque Chose Tombe, Racine has made a largely digital document that manages to sound organic and lovely at the same time.
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