We live in dissonant, uncertain times, and maybe our consciousness struggles if we try to make it fit square corners and easy forms. So now is a perfect time to feature long-time favorite label Facade Electronics out of northern Mexico. Their opening releases of the year, from artists dotting different parts of the world, flow into a narrative — one uncomfortable, sublime, beautiful.
I don’t want to project too much. But the air conditioning is humming away in the darkened studio I share. And outside there’s this blazing heat. And so listening to these releases has that feeling of escaping the climate on the other side of the walls, on some deeper spiritual level. These are not the kind of releases that will get featured in a lot of editorials. They just hum along; the sort of leftfield and IDM that used to be treasured. It’s like stepping into somebody’s kitchen; it feels lived-in and personal.
Julio Otero Vargas, a 90s Mexicali legend, is a prime example of that. He can be techno and industrial (see the duo R2). But here, in Dissonance, there’s something so gentle, like grief and wonder at once. Sounds are corroded, half-broken, but full of warmth and stories. “Cinematic” is the wrong word, as you drift from one scene to another like a dream. This came out way back in February, but fits the mood now.
Over to Paris, I’m going to let Alexandre Navarro explain Naviguer Le Rêve, as this one does feel so deeply personal. It’s that mood right after a long, involved dream, just as it’s drifting away, leaving you altered. And this is why I really appreciate actually following a label like Facade, not just picking up the hottest, latest thing from anywhere, but getting to know something. Each track on this turns and twists slightly relative to the last, sending you deeper into some other place.
«After composing ‘Naviguer Le Rêve’ I realized I had remained within an aesthetic continuity since my two most recent albums for Facade Electronics. Like an attempt to blend spiritual influences, dreamgaze, electronics and ambient (even though I never really embraced the term). Maybe, in the end, a trilogy? »
– Alexandre Navarro.
From Japan, Yamaoka has a dizzying set of all-analog patterns as “isorhythms,” sequenced on-keyboard using the Korg Minilogue, Minilogue-XD, Monologue, and two delay units. As a result, Ars Nova has the sense of paint directly on canvas. There’s the strict label that no PC or DAW was used, but you almost don’t need to know that, because you’ll feel it — ear-tickling stereo constructions that are absent layers or afterthought.
It returns to an important element of “ambient” music — not the mood or genre, but an approach to process, the way the technique unfolds. It’s Sol LeWitt’s synthesis hour, basically. It’s refreshing.
Occupying a rougher, fuzzier end of things, adding back the DAW but also cassettes and DAT, a radio, and an answering machine, we travel to Indiana. The self-titled Modrodda feels very nearly like late 90s IDM, the very first leftfield concoctions in the bedroom. Except it also doesn’t, because for all the lo-fi fuzz, there’s a deep sense of presence across these, an urgency to the rhythms. The bass and rhythm trip along like a lizard trying to escape a cage, with an occasional screech or call. It’s all the work of Kaiton Slusher in Indianapolis. And that’s the feeling, away from pretention and relevance to just the actual outcry of an artist who doesn’t sound like anyone else. It’s a deep-fried tenderloin of a release. No, no, no, do not trust me to make an Indy reference, I’m from Louisville, and I will certainly get it wrong.* (My goal: to write badly enough that you’ll know it’s not AI.)
The important thing is, like the others, you’ll want to put this on repeat. You’ll want to stay a while.
If after all of that you still want more, there’s the wonderful FEMIX series Facade does — now up to episode 63.
https://www.facadelectronics.com
Would you believe we’re on 63 now? I’m back at 32. Going to listen again as I temporarily forgot about this one.
Previously:
And… actually, I caught some of the same words again, but there’s a thread.
*I would try a yeast donut, however.