Les Yeux Creve
Jay Alansky
(F Comm)
Reported Monday, March 10 2003
Courtesy of Jonty_Adderley @ www.skrufff.com
Whether you label it 'dark ambient or chill-out' (as the accompanying F Com press release does) Jay Alansky's new album Les Yeux Creuve is an exceptionally beautiful album that marks out the Frenchman as a truly superior artist. Fantastically diverse and original, the 11 tracks mix and match French and English lyrics over sweetly melancholic and movingly dark mood music, that's both acoustic and purely electronic as Alanski makes clear his audio vision.
Reference points that stand out initially include Massive Attack (in their pre-Mezzanine days) and Zero 7, though his skill with strings and electronic soundscapes bear comparison with Brian Eno and even Can. Opening track Une Maximum De Lumiere sets the tone superbly, layering down-tempo jazz style trip hop beats over with a vocal snatch that would put St Germaine to shame. Captain Of My Ship and Compassionate continue his thoughtful furrow, Compassionate's sad sounds striking chords and painful memories.
My Life on Porn, with its single acoustic guitar and near spoken word tale of solitude and love, echoes Lou Reed at his best, segueing seamlessly into Manipulate, another guitar based song with a melodic intensity and power that Massive Attack's 3D would these days die for.
The album's finest moment is Nan, a dark, tear-jerking tune that begins with whale samples introducing a relatively uptempo ballad that's catchy, complex and complete.
Les Yeax Creve comes out in April on F Communications and is, as is to be expected from Laurent Garnier's superb label, special.
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