Labels: Nihil Inherit Records
Review by: MH
Having lived in France for a few years I can tell you that the word “Echancrure” means “notch”. The name of this album can be translated as “Landscape. October” or something very similar like “Scenery. October”. Echancrure is an experimental project from a bloke in France doing industrial-sounding ambient, drone stuff. I have seen him described as “avant garde black metal”. Whatever it is, it is not a type of music that I am overly familiar with (an understatement to say the least) but I will do my best to describe it to you.
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There are eight tracks here. They are all “untitled” and called “Sans titre 1”, “Sans titre 2”, “Sans titre 3” and so on. All sorts of instruments are used across the album as well as voices (whispering, talking, singing and screaming) and bleeps. It sometimes sounds like the soundtrack to my nightmares or a horror film (an actual scary one) and is quite bleak at times. Across the album I am imagining all sorts of things happening – the opening track sounds like someone is playing on their Game Boy while sitting in a cave. At one point a violin appears and then it sounds as if the room and walls are caving in. On “Sans titre 2″, it sounds like the world is going to end and out of nowhere an expert classical pianist appears and saves the day in a tunnel with a brief concerto piece. However, a deranged maniac on the violin steps in and sends everything hurtling the way of evil again before the pianist finally overcomes him only for some machines to come in and crush everybody in sight as the next track kicks in. Some of the voices are quite disturbing – a French-speaking voiceover on “Sans titre 3” is hidden under the music and incomprehensible but I am well aware that it is there. Later on, there are other voices and screams lurking too. The voices give an almost claustrophobic atmosphere to some of the tracks. The violinist makes repeated appearances across the album. There are quite crushing machine-like crashes and thumps throughout too. A bleak glockenspiel-led track closes the album. There is a voice towards the end too but I have no idea what he is saying.
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It’s nothing if not innovative. Whether you like this or not will probably depend on your penchant for these kind of experimental soundscapes. It’s not the sort of thing I would just chuck on in the background or that I’d listen to one song of before moving on to something else as it requires a quite involved listen and a fair amount of attention to get to grips with. The best way to listen to this is probably to sit down in a dark room with your eyes shut and listen through from start to finish. I haven’t done that…yet. That just leaves me with a conundrum. Unfortunately I can’t work out if this is really good or if it just scares the living daylights out of me.
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Also, I found an interview while researching this and particularly liked this question and answer:
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“10. Does Occultism play any role in the music?
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Not at all.”