Jean-Claude Eloy – Bordelines, Or Petra's Shouts cd (Hors Territoires)
Jean-Claude Eloy – Le Minuit de la Foi 2xcd (Hors Territoires)
Since establishing itself in 2010, Hors Territoires has been hard at work reconstituting, issuing and reissuing the amazing and epic dronework of Jean-Claude Eloy. Some of le shit dates back to the early sixties, while the most recent are "electroacoustic" reworkings from the mid 90s and in some cases much more recently "revised". Borderlines, however, is the first completely all-new work, composed and recorded by Eloy at, I would expect, quite the advanced age. It is also very, very good. Drone, yes, but verging on industrial-strength. At sufficient levels quite potent, ear-piercing, stuff. "Distorted scrunch! Clap of (real life) thunder, buzz of drone, slightly distorted crash, crraASH, buzz growing in ominous measure, clang, crunch, sweep, crankling crinkled metals, reverberation ad infinitum, ragged inhalation, exhalation." The ragged breathing I would take for Petra, the title character and contributing vocalizer. The assorted crashing no doubt that of Eloy's life-time collection of cowbells, some of them huge and custom-made, erotically posed in the accompanying booklet. The first thirty minutes of this long disc is given over to a quite, uh, striking working through of cowbell abuse, giving way to concrete traffic noise, subdued grey-tinged whitewash. Then, at long last, Petra proper, a heavily processed down-pitched mutant robot Petra choking against a second layer of very human gasps and moans in a borderline nutso approximation of agony-cum-escstasy. "This was one take," she giggles. Dead silence. The voice returns, straight-laced, speaking German, and the sky darkens, thunder claps, severely pitched tones, high drama beckons. The cowbells are out! Now Petra sounds like a damn Buddhist, chanting, intoning, humming, processed together with elongated electro-drawl. Then: huge melodramatic concentration of strained and scraped metal racket as the insane voice starts yelling-cum-chanting way in the background, growling engine motors thuddering about the pan. One thing this piece does not do, ever, is settle down. At every instant sound events are coming and going, pushing and pulling, wham bam thank you Madame Petra... Petra? Uh, Petra? What the hell is she doing in there and why wasn't I invited? Shrieking of... pain, delight? Claps of (real life) thunder accentuate the drama. Laughter. Giggle. Sexy intake of breath. Slow build into massive wash of waterfalltronics. A bell that actually sounds like a bell, cow optional, but by now we are on the seventy-first minute with only nine more to go. High concentration is certainly to be rewarded. Exhausting, expansive, utterly satisfying.
CLANG! announces the glorious unfolding of "Morgendammerung", the lengthy opening chapter to Le Minuit De La Foi. Spanning two hours over two discs, Le Minuit was especially recorded for those who thought Borderlines too short. Thankfully, at least for the borderline-abused earholes, this is far more subdued. Much heavier in depth but also much brighter in general tone, at least to start with. Voice-over from a precise, clear-voiced, German-speaking voice actress gives this a very documentary-esque flavor, of the nature-sciences persuasion, sprinkled with a bit of sixties sci-fi. An atheist's read of a strange spiritual journey as broadcast on The Discovery Channel. Deep thunderous booms set off slow moving majestic whispers and sighs, chirpy organ flitting playfully against a more constant organdrone, gradually absorbed into continuous cresting rushes of sound, constantly growing and shrinking, building and decaying- but as this is Eloy never but never simply dragging things out. Though in truth, for the casual listener it may well seem that way. Two hours is a long time to demand of one's concentration and one would have to be excused in letting it – the concentration - drift from time to time. Drifting in an unspecified sense of time is very likely part of the intent; it is certainly a good part of the appeal. An easy reference would have to be Eloy's four-hour magnum opus, Gaku-No-Michi (1979), which also reverberates vaguely in the above-commented Borderlines. Where Borderlines partakes of Gaku's occasional industrial-grade textures, Le Minuit echoes the mighty opus principally in pacing. Sound events evolve slowly, sometimes imperceptibly, but are always on the move. Hefty electronics that could be processed airplane noise- or trains roaring by. At twenty minutes or so the tone deepens and darkens, acquires considerable mass and depth as white-edged surges bank off of concrete revving engines processed almost, but not quite, to icy-smoothed oblivion. Not necessarily the kind of thing I would normally enjoy, perhaps, except that in the uber-capable hands of a master craftsman something just clicks. I am, like, totally absorbed in the deeply affecting depths of an interminable waking dream. At forty-five minutes we return to the documentary voice-over and the sci-fi organ tones, growing almost exultant as they intermingle with the unsettled washes of heaving white, long fade out. Disc 2's "Dammerlicht" picks up where Morgendammerung leaves off, slow builds and sighs onto more of the same. Gaku figures even more prominently here, as the pace picks up, the drama ups a couple notches, and heavily layered electronics build into the occasional squealing climax. Thoroughly modern sounding yet at the same time a most charming throwback to the sixties- or at least to Eloy's Shanti (1979). Put simply, there is nothing else quite like this out there. I find myself losing my train of thought, drawn back in, fading back out... clanks and squeals flitting in and out of perception. Thirty one minutes in and sounds fade out... voice actress in conversation with Eloy in the soundbooth... "This is a wonderful sentence, the best of her. The meaning of it. Do you understand the meaning of the text... Have you chosen the text by yourself?" ("Yes, of course, from the French, ehh...") "Ah! I think this is the most wonderful sentences from her, one of the most..." In lesser hands the momentum would be killed. But this is classic Eloy all the way. Rusted metal scrapes and slowed-down shuddering, shrieks to scalding peaks, massed clusters of converging metals, eerie tones, hints of feedback. I am insane for ever branding this shit ambient, but by forty minutes we are droning with all speed. Elongated drag into blubbering groan n' thud. Great, period.
