Deaf Joe‘s long-player Love Stories is an attempt to convert some of his most cherished travel memories into a kind of series of ambient soundscapes, retaining those souvenirs in a more fulfilling and long-lasting way than a pile of unseen photographs and scattered postcards.
The places are exotic and unfamiliar, and at times the tracks are bursting at the seams with sound. “Taal Lake” is a two-tone drone that immediately envelops you, joined gradually by further exultant tones, some sounds frayed and worn, shimmering and saturated until the track is replete, a wave of sound swamping yet caressing at the same time. “Havnegade” has a post-techno holiday beat with other sounds chuckling over the top like woodblocks that send us immediately overseas, relaxing under palm trees as revellers dance with joy along the water’s edge. There is a kind of carnival atmosphere, but only for the chosen few, a lulling chime soothing in the background.
Vast tracks of open sand dominate “Reynisfjara”, glowing in the early morning sun. A tribal beat grows in intensity until it overwhelms, drawing the widescreen image closer until it dissipates, leaving the dual beat throbbing in your eyes like an underground train, gradually receding as the tail light vanishes into the distance. Some of the beats are almost unsettling in their insistence. The lulling drift of “Ocean Beach” is opened right up, and is intriguing as it takes the track from day to night and from chill out to dance-floor banger in the space of a few moments. The images that the tracks produce in our heads are certainly vivid — but are they similar to what he has seen, or do they differ completely? Train brakes and the squelch of soaking shoes populate “Cambodian Sirens”, and those sounds produce particular images for me and would do the same for anyone who is open to the experience. It would be great to compare notes with Joe himself to see how close we are to these highly personal experiences. For the time being though, allow yourselves to drift amongst the samples and beats, and see where you end up.-Mr Olivetti-
