The D.,With Alexander De Large / Manson — D.A.F.
Its an album fundamentally rooted in the sounds and constructions of dance music, albeit the harsher side of things, as mentioned above. If the essential tools are borrowed from that arena, the end results totally transcend it; giving us an album which sounds like “Faust Tapes” being covered by the Boredoms, barricaded in a techno studio, with William Burroughs and Lenny Dee offering advice. There’s no discernible structure or narrative to the affair, just one long track on each side that combines skilled collage work with jolting cuts. Often, these tracks have sections which are just long series of individual sounds or events; in the same way as some electro-acoustic or tape music does. At other points, the sounds settle into a defined structure for a few minutes - or indeed a few seconds. There’s a fantastic section near the end of the first side, where some monstrous, grating bass appears - only to be quickly joined by some really solid beats and then just as quickly disappear into the sound of frenzied breathing. Other passages tease with possible techno, descend into scraping, combine ominous drones with clattering live drums or stutter into the most damaged atari teenage riot-esque sequences imaginable; the tone and mood rarely settle. There is a lot of processing on the album, but its always on the gritty, damaged side of things: there’s no crystal clear phasers here. In a rhythmic section near the start, there are some incredibly nice crackles surrounding (and emanating from) the percussion; sounds are constantly being pulled and tested, resulting in some very distressed textures. The album actually ends with a brief silent gap, and then a quick snippet of Charles Manson and chums performing “Mechanical Man” pops up.
If this all just sounds like a very messy take on electronics/dance music, then you should know of another clear ingredient which really does mess things up: vocals. There are a lot of vocal elements in this album; some of which come close to taking on a traditional vocal role, but most of which are treated as pure sound. Cut up, sped up, trashed and obliterated - making the whole record a very odd proposition in total. The fact that most of the intelligible voices speak in french - the album actually starts with a breathy female voice and a close-up male voice shadowing each other and intoning french - leads me to suggest an unexpected comparison: “L’Etrange Mr Whinster” by Horrific Child. “L’Etrange…” is the demented mid-1970’s work of Jean Pierre Massiera; a fairly indescribable monstrosity of an album that just needs to be heard. (It was recently re-issued on Finders Keepers records - I can’t recommend it enough.) Given Massiera’s excursions into disco and funk, this comparison seems even neater.
This album was, frankly, a real surprise. By varying its pace and tone, and creatively making the most of a fairly limited palette of sounds, The d. - or Nathalie Bles (here aided and abetted by six others, only two of which I recognise: Horatio Pollard and the Manson Family..!) - has emerged with a very engrossing album which successfully balances abstract and more structured passages. A very fine listen indeed.