Blaubac - Perdurance

by Mark Rowland

published: 23 / 6 / 2002

Label: Moth
Format: CD

"Far above average" electronica from British based braindance innovator, Chris Smith, who works under nom de plume of Blaublac

Review

Blaublac is the brainchild of Chris Smith, who specialises in producing smokey, stuffy dub influenced braindance. Interest has grown in Blaublac over the past year, mainly due to the success Radiohead achieved with their decidedly braindance influenced album ‘Kid A’, which definitely took its cues from Blaublac on some of its tracks. ‘Perdurance’ is a slightly brighter affair than it’s darker than dark predecessor ‘Wind Chill’, and takes on guest vocalists and musicians on tracks like the slightly funky ‘Photerene’ and gentle piano lead track ‘Velle’, which gives the album a slightly more organic and jazzy sound in places. Within the sleeve of ‘Perdurance’ there is a passage that tries to explain what perdurance is, ranting on about the “obvious flux of the galaxies, clouds, rivers or sea” and the “Microscopic world of the quantum realm”. Quite frankly, this positively reeks of concept album, but try not to let that put you off. You just have to listen with a peg firmly attached to your nose. Tracks range from sparse opener ‘Freyon’ and the dubby ‘Halocine' to the sludgy clatter of ‘Gongous’ and the tribal thump and jazzy synths of ‘Drsoph’, but best of all are the vocal lead tracks, especially ‘Velle’. The addition of the vocals doesn’t stop the tracks from being un-mistakenly Blaublac, but they do add and enhance the music, giving it an extra element for Blaublac’s electronic sketches to organise themselves around. This puts ‘Perdurance’ far above your average electronica album in its ability to form itself into proper songs without really compromising its sound. Chris Smith may have developed a taste for making concept albums, but we can but hope his next concept will be to base his music around singers.