We all know that Mr Vital is Frans de Waard and all of us (yes, you, too) have at some point heard his music. Being a reviewer since somewhere last year, we had a serious talk about how to handle reviewing each other's music, and during a few beers at dB's in Utrecht, our mutual agreement was "we both don't care as long as we're honest about it, because that is what respect is about". So now, even if you think so, everything we write is honest. Because taste might differ, and that's no reason to write down nonsense or lies. Having written that -, I've been asked about it a few times recently - This week, I got two new releases in my stash that included Frans de Waard.
The first is a CDR by Massachusetts-based Love Earth Music, a label that has been on my desk quite a lot this past year. Most of their releases have a strong noise factor in their sound, so hearing that Modelbau was on there made me curious. Modelbau's sound is an amalgam of ambience, drones and sound design with slow fades and very narrative in nature. Even if the narrative isn't always clear - but that's part of the mysticism of this art form. So would Frans dive into noise? Or would there be some harsher noise incorporated in this release? The answer is yes and no (a bit more no).
The 55-minute track is built from tape loops or complex delay patterns. It's fed with all kinds of sounds, from organic to fully synthesized and nice feedback sounds. Feedback with an origin in electronic circuitry to the edge of saturation. The somewhat harsher noises and some distorted vocals are more subdued in the background, and the looping/delay we know from Modelbau's "style" generate pulsating patterns and slow buildups. Actually, this is not unlike how I like my concerts to be. There is a constant movement and yet still a certain stability.
'Inlets' is a one-track album, but on the back of the cover, it mentions 'in, perhaps, 11 parts'. I'm curious if the parts were recorded separately and then mixed or if it was all set up and the 11 parts were recorded in one go. Because of the unity in the result, I believe both, which is a compliment.
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