Articles
Roger O'Donnell
Morgan Packard

Albums
The Ace of Clubs
akido
Cenotype
Cyrus
Mathias Delplanque
Entia Non
Michael Fakesch
False
Forrest
Kraig Grady
Kiln
Kingfisherg
Low in the Sky
Payton MacDonald
Manitou
Martin & Machinefabriek
Mt. Fuji Doom. Corporation
Need More Sources
Nobile
Odd Nosdam
Ontayso
Jair-Rôhm Parker Wells
RF & Lili De La Mora
Schmickler / Chisholm
The Sea
Seabear
Valgeir Sigurðsson
Silvania
Six Twilights
Aaron Spectre
Stamen & Pistils
Swayzak
Tijuana M. A. Broad. Inc.
Utom Alla
Pete Warren
Yaporigami

Compilations / Mixes
Box of Dub
Expanse at Low Levels
Ibiza – Renaissance Vol. 4
Jahtarian Dubbers Vol. 1
The Silence Was Warm

3"/ 7"/ 10"/ 12"/ EPs
Abiku / Kid Camaro
Audio Injection
B12
Bering & Simko
Bury the Sound
The Caribbean
DJ C feat. Zulu
Entia Non
Flavius E
Andre Gardeja
Lerosa
Magnum 38
Microthol
Ontayso
Troy Pierce
Ghislain Poirier
Rusuden
Skoozbot
Slap [unmodified]
Sonmi451
Joel Tammik
TG

Mathias Delplanque: Le pavillon témoin
Low Impedance

Though France-based Mathias Delplanque is fairly well-known for electronic dub releases under the Lena name, it's fitting that he's opted to issue Le Pavillon Temoin (‘The Show House') under his real name. Not to disparage the Lena material in any way, but this new album sounds like a more personal and direct reflection of Delplanque's music-making. The style is certainly not Lena ; instead, acoustic instrumentation (guitar, piano, cello, drums, accordion, melodica, bells) dominates the album's atmospheric and diverse settings, and the songs themselves inhabit a post-rock space that ranges from jazz and folk to ambient and musique concrete. There are dreamy, downtempo moments (“Contre-Plinthe,” “Va-Et-Vient”), folktronic settings (the equally funereal and wistful “Ecrasé sous les pierres ”), piano-based dramatics (“Parquet flottant”), and lumbering dirges (“Le detecteur de mouvements,” where strings moan, shudder, and swoop amidst junkyard percussive patterns). Moods shift within songs too: “Le regard” opens with subtly processed lattices of acoustic picking but then morphs into a post-rock dirge accompanied by Old West whistling, while “Le corridor” puts its melancholy accordion melodies through a glitch-heavy blender. For reasons that aren't entirely clear, four of the fifteen pieces, including the folk meditation “Saragosse” and gravel-voiced dirge “It's Spring On the Moon,” are grouped under the title “Le journal oublié” (“The Forgotten Diary”). Many pieces are short, like brief scenes or sketches, but they work together to make a cumulative impact. It may be more challenging to get a handle on Le Pavillon Temoin when it's so wide-ranging but, in the long run, the album makes a stronger impression as a result.

August 2007