CD - Hymen
Operating under the moniker VNDL, Philippe Vandal, a young Montreal-based electronic investigator, released his first record "Something For Someone" on Abstract Reflections (an EP now available as a free download). The artist has not moved far from those organic and lively cuts in this latest offering , with its rarefied interlacements, sinuously evolving guitar loops and field recordings. Vandal has created some very coherent environments, rich in digital manipulations and mysterious mixes. The sound is dense, adventurous, a little bent in on itself and gloomy, and he doesn't shun electro-acoustic techniques and new sound mutations of environmental forms, stutters and artfully edited hesitations. This is a research that reverberates with a contemplative attitude, with light sound dysfunctions well balanced in the passages. There is differentiation in the layers and tonal harmonies; solid even in the most hidden folds, where guitar fragments and post-rock cacophonies emerge, before being routed towards other trickles of imagination. Larval influences are allowed to sketch the horizon of a very assorted audio experience, but one that remains very consistent and intense. In "Gahrena: Paysages Électriques", the balance between the more improvised sequences and the meticulously organized compositional structures keeps the listener poised on a shaky ridge, oscillating on both sides, without ever indulging in easy appeasements or affected solutions.
Aurelio Cianciotta