arc rae feat. Mathhilde Vendramin - Bow and Arrow (Mystery Circles) [Electronic Music]
- The Slow Music Movement
- 1 hour ago
- 2 min read
Morgan Vergnol aka arc rae is a French-born producer currently based in Berlin, and no stranger to TSMM's blog and playlists. Over the last five years he's developed a nice line in gently restless, playful yet cultured sound design and post-glitch cosmictronica, often with gentle ambient undercurrents for the ever interesting Mystery Circles. I heartily recommend you explore both his and the label's back catalogues.
His new album is something of a departure though, and takes the restlessness to a new, more agitated state, but fear not, despite the lack of familiar form, the ultra-broken beats and future minimalism are threaded together with an abstract grooviness which will appeal to black belt beat heads as well as the more experimentally inclined, and shouldn't cause too many spasmodic reactions.
This more adventurous transmission evolved from a series of freely improvised cello and vocals improvisations by Mathhilde Vendramin, who currently seems to be making moves of her own - flitting between her classical upbringing and jazz, keep an eye on her. Rather like a sonic serial killer, Monsieur rae then chopped up the recordings into little pieces, largely destroying the evidence by manipulating, layering and rearranging fragments of the original recordings into new forms, augmented by his own electronic music creations.
The opener, "Lo and Behold" is a blend of haunting cello moments repurposed as sample refrains and propelled through the speakers by futuristic broken beats and deep house pads that disintegrate near the end of its short existence into skittering modular fragments, paving the way for the scurrying glitchiness of "Rubicon" that initially teases, then opens up to showcase Vendramin's heart-wrenching bowing - it's a neoclassical gem.
"I See You" takes a plucked sample and repurposes it to help drive the twinkling, borderline twee beats and is something of a palette cleanser for the schizophrenic, initially darker and dramatic post-classicism of "Imago" that suddenly switches the studio lights on in the latter stages. The aptly entitled "Mosaic" patiently loops and layers the cello samples before sprouting broken-beat credentials that would meet with approval in West London. "Nope" will appeal to fans of rae's previous works, with its more sedate and fluid nature - drones and cello melting into each other, lightly anchored by some static hiccups. The album then rightly ends on a boundary-reshaping blend of dub techno pads, free cello, angelic vocals and percussive smatterings to remind you of the recording's forward-looking and pleasantly experimental credentials.
Playlist Companion
Find them in the Slowtronic Playlist.