Éric La Casa — Zone Sensible 2 / Dundee 2
The album opens with ‘Zone Sensible 2’ which starts out with a slowly fading-in & building of layers of bee buzzing tones. And just when you think it’s all becoming too overwhelming and almost wall-like in it's buzzing thickness, La Casa suddenly cuts to silence at around the two mintue mark. This silence is pretty soon filled with nicely growing and lightly static cut electro drone matter that’s underfeed by a Bullroarer like wind revolution. Then by the five minute mark the bees are once more buzzing and landing around you in waves of buzzing and feast tone swells, with the drone and bullroarer tones still present mixing with more electronic texturing and morphed/melted bee sound texture. The rest of the just under twenty seven minute track nicely raises and falls through a mixture of bee sound, drone textures & drilling at times quite noisy electronics- all giving this quite surreal yet leisurely sonic rollercoaster feel.
Up next is the three parts of ‘Dundee two’- the first track starts up with a slowly coming into sonic view low-level electro tube buzz, and at around the minute and a half point a rather bemused Scottish voice asks “what are you doing in the carpark” to which La Casa retorts “ I’m recording space”. Then we jump into louder more swirled and dipping drone texture maps, which are marked with more electro feed whirring and wind whistling tones -I presume are taken from modified recordings of the car park.
‘Dundee two’ second track attacks you straight off with a wind battering sound recording that is left to echo off after 30 seconds or so, then we have near silence for a minute or so before once more we’re attacked by another wind battering and clanking field recording that mixed with water textures and steel structure settle and rush. The rest of this thirteen minute track nicely and at times quite jarring switchers between sudden noisy layers of field recording mixers that take in: a bingo caller, clunking steel structures, accelerating cars and seagull chatter. And near silence or settle drone matter, or ebbing out field recordings.
The third part of ‘Dundee two’ slowly fades in or drifts into you listening space with a ticking low down carpark like drone. At the minute and a half mark we get a female voice saying “I’am alive again”, before we get sudden jarring mechanically texture that sounds like lift mechanism drone 'n' clunk . The rest of eleven minute track builds another quite jarring, and often surprising textured mix of: up 'n' down ride of mechanical drones, car engine ticking’s, distant sport commentators talk, distant train line judder, etc. It's again another very rewarding, though at times quite jumpily creative mix of subtle electronics, manipulated field recordings and very clever over laying and sequence of textures.
All told ‘Zone Sensible 2 / Dundee 2’ is a very rewarding, at times jarring mix of soundart, electro drone textures and seared electronic tones. So if you dig your soundart with a bit of a noisy and unhinging edge to it this is very worth tracking down. Another great release that blurs the lines between music, drone and field recordings.