PAROLES
Publié par Ant-Zen – Composé de 2012 à 2013 – Grand merci : Marion – Céline – Marc – Rebecca – Tao – Didier – Juliette – Pilou – La troupe Nyogon -Les voix radiophoniques – S.Alt
Chroniques
Ant-Zen
The album ‘frequences sensibles’ offers a strong progression in the fields of harshness and rectilinearity, in which artistic playfulness is replaced with frantic power. Varied elements of musique concrète and heavily distorted noise have been constricted and pulled using high pressure into eight straightforward hardcore techno based beat corsets which do not make room for any intake of breath. This album demonstrates another facet of vincent ingouf’s harsh rhythm-oriented side, eligible for public and home environments. Une leçon de danse émotionnelle – écouter à fort volume!
Release Magazine https://www.releasemagazine.net Let’s start right at the beginning with this, as it is one of the most interesting opening tracks I’ve heard in a long time – at first it sounds like you are listening to a field recording – there are dogs barking, floors creaking and such typical noises – however, listening carefully you realise that all is not what it seems, the dog barks change pitch, the creaks stutter, then a creaking door slowly opens… …and we are into the world of Lingouf, which turns out to be just as interesting. Harsh soundscapes juxtapose with jazz singers, heavy beats play along to affected rhythms, and everything, no matter how harsh, is extremely listenable. Lingouf is actually Vincent Ingouf, a very talented artist and electronic musician – as much influenced by NIN as he is Aphex Twin, it would seem – and more than at home on the Ant-Zen label. Back to the album. There is a focus on the heavier side of techno to almost industrial noise here, but it never becomes unpleasant, which is one of the easy things to happen in this genre, similarly the music evolves enough to never become monotonous and boring, packed with vocal snippets, strings, and field recordings – another key factor in this genre that many fall foul of. This is all the more worthy of note when you consider that most of the tracks on this album are near 10 minutes long (in fact the shortest, the IDM-like “Un Arbre” is still a substantial 5 minutes). “Lecon de Danse Emotionnelle” is my favourite without a doubt – it is funny and hard as hell – in fact everything that is good about this type of music we love – it could easily make my best of for the year (and I’m sure it probably will). Without trying to pigeonhole the track it sounds like Aphex Twin taking his synths on a holiday in Paris and recording the atmosphere while sipping café au lait on a terrace. Listen to “Faim du Monde” or the title track itself to realise the talent this artist has and you too might be sucked in to the world of Lingouf – a barnstorming release, one as playful as it is hard, and one that deserves a bigger following than just fans of the genre. Mike Whyte
Peek a Boo http://www.peek-a-boo-magazine.be Vincent Lingouf is a France based artist, Normandy to be exactly. He is famous for his artwork and paintings, his music can be catalogued as ‘experimental’. Lingouf brings a very eclectic mix of sounds, beats, and noisy environments, all this with heavy rhythms and breaks. Since 2008 he joined the German Ant-Zen label. With his new album Frequences Sensibles he continues with his bizarre sound of heavy mixes between powerful industrial beats and deep electronics with bizarre melodies, all added with French conversations and breaks. Music for the broad minded audio art lovers! Tracks like Faim Du Monde and the title track Fréquences Sensibles are the two more acceptable songs. Rhythmic, even some danceable tunes, carefully selected voice samples that pass into furious technoid outbursts. The rest of this album is heavily experimental with even some influences from classical music, dubstep, hardcore and industrial. These tunes are for a very select audience. All in all, this album is experimental from start to finish. Cleverly pieced together into individual electronic montages, once again this will not be everyone’s cup of tea. Peter HESELMANS
Wounds of the earth http://woundsoftheearth.blogspot.com
Basics: In addition to being an incredibly talented artist (he does all the fabulous artwork for Lingouf, and I highly recommend checking out his website which has to be one of the best on the net), Vincent Ingouf is also quite an apt musician. His work is typically a strange hybrid of gabber, hardcore, rhythmic noise, and related genres. On his newest album, Fréquences Sensibles, he follows a somewhat similar modus operandi, though this time he gets more into chiptune and, for lack of a better term, experimental territory.
Stuff: As per usual, almost all of his tracks are incredibly long – all but one track here is over 9 minutes in length, the longest being over eleven and a half minutes! While this is normally absurd for the rhythmic noise or gabber genre, Lingouf is up to the challenge of crafting music so incredibly complex and diverse that it doesn’t feel repetitive or monotonous, even after 10 minutes of the same track. It’s rather hard to describe any one track as they are exceedingly complex and go through many different sections. For example, the opener « Orage de Decembre » begins with a minute of near nothingness before evolving into a sort of dubby slow part which continues to build, introducing muted vocal clips and beep-y chiptune-ish synth bits before exploding into a beat heavy section. What follows are several erratic and schizophrenic sections chock full of gabber kicks and mutant synths – everything from chiptune to trance to pummeling rhythmic noise. This reminds me of a heavier version of something like Squarepusher put into a blender with Bit Shifter and Somatic Responses. Where normal music is built from verses, choruses, and maybe a bridge; Lingouf’s music has bridges, tunnels, skyways, valleys, you name it. It’s completely unpredictable and nonstop. Just when you think it might be mellowing down, it ramps right back up and hits you with a wall of noise and even more bizarre, cacophonous synths. This is rhythmic noise at its most abstract. I feel that it is nearly impossible to accurate explain in adequate detail, and you really need to hear it for yourself.
Overall: Truely some of the most bizarre music I have ever heard. If the idea of very complex, mutant Gabber appeals to you than check this out! I am more familiar with his early Ant Zen stuff which I liked; this is a bit too out there for me but I still appreciate all the work that surely went into crafting this. Fans of Ant Zen who are looking for something more happy and erratic, look into this one.
Chaindlk http://www.chaindlk.com Lingouf is French artist Vincent Ingouf who has oodles of releases, none of which I’ve ever heard until ‘terre de pierres’. Look at the cover of this C D. It will give you NO CLUE what this music is like, and yet nearly every clue about the elements in the music music. Lingouf’s cartoon aesthetics (as seen on the CD cover, his website and elsewhere) translate to some degree to the music. The music here is sample-based electronica and glitch electronics using a good amount of acoustic sound source material. Most of what you see on the cover represents in some part, the sound of this CD, but then again, not really. Let me explain the pieces. First track ‘l’horioge a mimi’ has the ambient sounds of birds, metronomal mechanical clocks and winding of the same, and eventually clock chimes. This develops into a clocky melodic rhythm of chimes with light percussive elements becoming a beguiling little tune. It could have gone on for another five minutes and I’d still have been entranced. Title track ‘terre de pierre’ begins like a foley fiesta (still some birds in the background) also with analogue echo machine feedback bringing in tinkling chiming elements into this glitch-driven rhythm that also uses some electronic sounds. Very crafty and sort of cartoonish. ‘la marche du vent de glace’ has surf/wind noise, barking dog, a variety of little acoustic percussive and non-percussive sounds (shuffling, scraping, etc.) before accordion chords prompts the piece to develop some rhythmic impetus. A Bontempi organ also helps develop a melodic theme. It’s very simple stuff but so cleverly done I can’t help but be enamored. ‘accordrobion’ begins sounding like someone just learning the accordion (long sustained chords and simple arpeggios) playing with a rhythm ace but turns into something much deeper as it builds and expands on a simple ascending chord progression becoming a dub extravaganza with some other interesting electronic variations employed. The ominous deep drone and metallic squeal beginning of ‘varionuguicaa’ doesn’t give a clue to where this hallucinatory piece of weirdness is headed, and the howling dog lends a strange touch, along with the snippets of human coughs, voices and other ephemeral sounds incorporated in the music. Before you know it you’re steamrolled by a mad gamelan orchestra. ‘b 22 le soufflÃé du feu’ has a female voice sustaining a single note (and later, female voices sustaining chords), fast accordion arpeggios and a rhythm before it completely weirds out into an electronic fantasia. Recorded street conversation (in French of course) and ambience begins ‘l’annee du chat’ and then a marching band on speed comes along but then an IDM inspired dubstep crew takes over and things become really bizarre. Am I giving you any idea how crazy this is getting? Lingouf is big on building on simple dramatic minor progressions, lots of arpeggios and adding as many unusual sounds as he can get his hands on, be it water, hammers, birds, oscillating electronics, modulated accordion, water glasses, whatever. To some degree it reminds me of musician-composers such as Ron Geesin, (early) David Van Tieghem and Philip Glass, but in a remix war between The Orb and Skrillex. Actually, you might think that would sound very BIG, but not really. Look at the CD cover again. This is a homey sort of electronica but in a very warped and twisted way. Something you just have to hear, and believe me, you should. Steve Mecca