Snakeskin
They Kept Our Photographs

MARIONETTE15 - UK - 2021Rainbow de Nuit by David Fenech & KlimpereiMaestro melodist Christophe Petchanatz (aka Klimperei) and all around music fanatic David Fenech engage remotely in a repetitive exchange of recordings and overdubs on their debut album titled ‘Rainbow de Nuit’, sporadically spanning over the last decade. Evocations of experimental and improvised jazz, chansonesque songs, bluesy folk, and outsider music undulate harmoniously across the record. From music boxes and walkie-talkies down to plastic straws, plucking various stringed instruments such as the charrango and banjo, kazoos and snake-charmer ocarina and flutes, all the way through the sweet accordion and melodica, found and traditional tuned percussion - there is far from a shortage of sound sources on this freakishly inviting record. What germinates as an imaginative and emotional chord progression played by Klimperei, evolves with Fenech layering additional recordings, which would then find their way back home to Klimperei yet again, and so on, and so forth. This recursive compositional and improvisational loop, combined with Fenech’s musique-concrete-like mixing and editing techniques, transforms the acoustic recordings by way of compression, saturation, and reverberation or simple pitch changes - resulting in the duo’s recordings seemingly sound like they may very well be an octet in real time. While the majority of the recordings have been ping-ponged remotely, David and Christophe unite under one roof to record the closing track of the album.The pieces presented on ‘Rainbow de Nuit’ treat the ears to a carousel ride waltzing through a multiverse made up of surrealist puppet theaters, dramatic film noir act changes, and a mosaic of polyphonic instruments and toys alike. In other words, a score to a fable brought to life with haunting yet charming melodies and occasional hallucinatory voices reminiscent of laughter and infantile epiphanies which we hear on Tarzan en Tasmanie and Madrigal for Lola. This is taken a step further by Fenech, to a brief libretto of incomprehensible tongues on Pocarina. Amid the mysterious and dark (Septième Ciel and Rugit Le Coeur) also lies tender and simple compositions (Rainbow de Nuit and Chevalier Gambette), murky suspenseful melancholy (Levy Attend and Eno Ennio), and casually slipping into pensive psychedelic backdrops (Un Cercueil à Deux Places) - forming a colorful blend of sounds. A world of echoes. A tale of tales. One persistent earworm that you’ll likely be whistling and humming along to on a first listen.

Alan Tew's driving jazz-rock, sleuth-funk masterpiece, Drama Suite Part I is finally reissued to sate your appetites for arguably the very best library two-parter in existence. If you don’t know, get to know. Originally released in 1976 but wonderfully timeless, Drama Suite Part I is at the top of every library funk collectors' list. It's easy to see why...

Harmless Joking Edits by Molio HoliTwo songs from Molio Holi’s back catalogue get the Secret Disco treatment in all their extended dance glory."Harmless" sounds like the Happy Mondays doing a post-late-late night, early morning recording session in Ikebukuro. Taken from Molio Holi’s excellent full-length cassette "Yopo," released in April 2021 on Everyday Ago, the track is all shakers, finger snaps, lazy tight bass, bongos, sixties-tinged psychedelic drones, blasted keys, and catchy call and response vocals with the most too-cool-for-school delivery this side of the Yamanote line. Secret Disco reworks the number to the 9'57" mark. With no additional production, the loping, 111 bpm ditty is extended for all its blissful worth."Joking" pictures New Order smoking cigarettes with The Cure in a rainy Kabukicho alley at 4 a.m., all eyes on the puddles gathering at their feet. Released in December 2021 on Molio Holi’s own Soleil lunatique imprint as part of the brilliant "White Sunlight" EP, the song combines sparse drum machines, synth bass, melancholy chiming keys, and searing, razor blade guitars. The beautiful vocals are a detached kind of sorrowful, an aloof despondency. Secret Disco splices up the original, rearranging it to more than twice its original length to maximize the pensive 120 bpm dance floor experience.

COMMENCEMENT by Police des moeursAlthough a mirror or extension of the previous Péril, COMMENCEMENT differs from it in this way: the atmosphere of the brief interludes that punctuated Péril is now built within most of the pieces, through introductions, suspension bridges or extended finales, thus offering more complex spaces to visit. The duo offers catchy melodies, via synths and vocals, while their bouncy rhythmic signature is still present on several tracks. Composed of 10 eclectic tracks, the album harmonizes through meticulous arrangements. It also constructs it's logic through a narrative framework composed of stripped-down words, acting as incantations. These repetitive formulas seem to come from impotent ruminations, but they also take the form of renewed promises, invitations to revolt or the summoning of a distant joy.