Melmac - Melmac

  by John Clarkson

published: 28 / 5 / 2006

Label: Select Label
Format: CD

intro

Imaginative and thoughtful second full-length album from Parisian instrumental post rock/electronica duo Melmac

Melmac become more mysterious with each new outing. While the tracks on their last album, ‘Les Secours Arrivent et Prennent Le Relais’, were listed by a succession of symbols-the ‘Pause’ and ‘Rewind’ markings on hi-fis and cassette recorders, a question mark, a cross and a picture of lorry to give but a few examples-the nine different segments of their new album, the simply titled ‘Melmac’, have no track listing at all. The group, a post rock/electronica duo consisting of two Parisian brothers Luc (casiotron, mpc 2000 and mini disc) and Nicolas Reverter (guitars, tapes, music clavier and mini disc), first formed in 1998. They released a succession of EPs and compilation tracks on a variety of labels including hinah, Perversion Mecanique, See-Through Records and POPnews, before putting out ‘Les Secours Arrivent et Prennent Le Relais’,which was their debut full-length album, on their own Ronda label in 2003. From its opening moments, in which gently grinding industrial sounds are merged with Luc’s hazy layers of casiotron, to its final startling conclusion, a jarred synthesizer playing the same softly vibrating note over and over for half an hour, ‘Melmac’, which is 70 minutes long, captures its listener’s attention. In between there are further fuzzy industrial noises, snapshots of speech from French radio and television programmes, spooky BBC Workshop-type sound effects and passages of shimmering electronic ethereal beauty. Nicolas’ guitars, more of a shadowy presence on past recordings, are pushed to the surface, and resonate between a chiming acoustic sound and having a rough, distorted electric edge. Instrumental post rock , of course, is always open to interpretation, especially when there are no titles or track listing. What the Reverter brothers, however, seem to be implying on this album as with ‘Les Secours Arrivent et Prennent Le Relais’, as their music shifts between shades of light and dark, and with its emphasis on surreal industrialisation and, therefore, urbanity, is that they find the world a source of both alternating excitement and horror. Imaginative and haunting, 'Melmac' is a totally riveting experience

Track Listing:-