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Band: des Esseintes Album: Mondo Macabro Album Year: 2006 Label: Malignant Records Genre(s): Experimental, Noise, Ambient, Industrial Band Website: www.malignantrecords.com
Rating: 7/10 Track list:
1. Muse 6. Release 7. Aftermath 8. On 9. Off 10. Strange Tremors 11. Like Myself 12. Discontinued
It seems that this album is more of a compilation of songs from the band's career. The material dates from 1998 to 2003, with all the tracks save for two being released previously.
The music offered by des Esseintes is fairly hard to classify, but if you don't like noise then you should probably stop reading this right now. The tracks seem to be mainly layered noise with random bits of other genres thrown in the mix. Some of the tracks, such as "Succubus" are purely noise, but many of the others include beats, synths, symphonic elements and all kinds of other sounds underneath an ever-present veil of harsh noise. I am not a fan of noise music, and the parts of the album that are more noise than anything else really annoy me, but the rest of the album is not bad. The intro track "Muse" seems to be a pretty representation of what this band can do. It is a very strange mixture of harsh, grating noise, classical instrumentation, and symphonic elements. After a few minutes it explodes with a beat and even more distortion, with elements of electro-industrial. Most of this album seems to be about breaking walls between genres and just being insane, and it actually works. Although most of the tracks are overly full of harsh noise, I think that this record is something that is genuinely experimental and it goes places that, at least in my experience, I have not heard to exist. This album seems to have everything on it, from noise to synths to guitars to classical instruments to vocal pads to ambient textures to...whatever. I've never heard anything from this band before, but I'd say this album is probably a good place to start if you were interested. It showcases a pretty wide range of tracks and what I assume the band is capable of. There are some total noise fests, some totally weird experimental tracks, some cohesive electro tracks that seem to have some structure and methodology and even some ritualistic ambient tracks with no noise at all! des Esseintes does a fairly good job with regard to composition. Although the tracks on Mondo Macabro are crazy and seemingly nonsensical, many of them seem to have some structure and cohesion and methodology behind their creation. the individual sounds are all discernable and the tracks have peaks and valleys. The strange and large array of sounds used in each track fit together nicely to create a strange atmosphere that seems to cover the entire album, even though the tracks are from different years. The overall atmosphere is somewhat similar to a b-horror film being run through a distortion box. One thing that is strange and pleasant, is that even though the tracks are from different albums and time periods, they all must have been re-mastered together because they all have the same (well produced) sound quality to them; there is nothing that is obviously older/newer or better/worse quality than anything else. The songs themselves seem to move and progress to some extent and are capable of taking the listener on a very abrasive and creepy journey if they are willing. Mondo Macabro is definitely a fucking weird mixture of sounds, but if you enjoy noise or are tired of boring shit that claims to be experimental, then this is definitely an album that will want to check out. It will change the way you think about the use of noise in music.
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[.d4n b4rr3tt.]
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