The first side of Mise En Abyme milks a soft melancholic as different voices are set alight to a rhythmic jumble sale of textural glitches and slipped-disc percussives as Jean Cousin, aka Joni Void’s second outing gets knee-deep into the virus of modernity.
The absent minded hums of Noah on “Dysfunctional Helper” process-slipping in roomy reverbs, loose-limbed programming and needling repeats braiding psychedelically as the splash of passing traffic curves a ceramic clank, that plaintive murmur of vocal the primary focus point to the nomadic qualities surrounding it. It’s an odd feeling, like each track is in the process of repair, “Lov-ender” deploying YlangYlang‘s (Catherine Debard) multiple angles that skip-rope a deconstructed jive of abstract dislocations and cow-bell like tinkerings.
Like Cornelia Parker’s Cold Dark Matter, these tracks are full of vibrating fragments restlessly slipping their skin. “Abusers” adds a soulful warmth to proceedings, basking in a melodic turbine of exhaling synth-work, Esmerine’s Sarah Pagé puppeteering its gently flickering pinions and knitting-needle clicks. Very seductive to the ear, Void’s timing is meticulous, manicured, his beats and rhythmics feel innovative, captivating. The animated way Naomie de Lorimier’s desiccated yoguling and conversational snippets on “Non-dit” are thrown round is rather groovesome. Sounds slumber satisfactorily in their own venting juices and bassy concoctions, slip like a salty oyster straight into your imaginings. For the flip side, Void imaginatively reconstructs our noise-filled lives from a diverse pool of eclectically stitched geometrics – some highly personal, others more remote. He begins by wringing a haunting organ-like otherness from ringtones and answering machines on “No Reply”, then dissolving camera whirs and flash unit sounds on “Cinetrauma” into a delectable (and strangely danceable) hallucination. This is the artificial as artifice, as the odd skewered techno of “Safe House” roasts a randomised bleep and mechanically recovered rasp.All these bits and pieces evolving, revolving with a reconstituted life. The vocal Scalextrics of “Voix Sans Issue” amaze, all operatically opaque in dramatic interplay, before “Deep Impression” reels you in further with its frank, emotional honesty – a computer-spoken poetry/therapy workout stirred into choppy symphonic waters.
This feels cutting-edge, in a Holly Herndon vein of attentiveness, a plaything that interrogates, pushes its own boundaries to ironically swing into a conventional slice of synth-work on “Persistence”. A vibe slowly deconstructed before being pulled poignantly over sparking tramlines and into a distorted dirge. A vibe that seamlessly hitches into the rosy optimism of the album’s closer “Resolve” as distant dog barks jam with sci-fi curves and dictophonic distress. A sign-off that neatly returns you to the start, where out-takes of the whole album ping around the speakers whilst VHS rips of Void’s mum and dad’s wedding reception voyeur the volatility.Itchy electronica that folds back on itself, cyborgs a little human warmth into the chilled circuitry.
-Michael Rodham-Heaps-
