Le Corbeau: Evening chill / Montreal of the mind (2009), Fysisk Format

Nos acercamos hoy a un grupo noruego que, al contrario que la mayoría de sus paisanos, utilizan la lengua francesa para entonar las pocas frases con que adornan la gran parte de sus temas. Ésa es otra de sus características, el ser un grupo prácticamente instrumental; son muy pocos los temas que aparecen cantados (Línnocence revient encore/Reve d´ivresse, Dans la lumiere du crepuscule, Night Stroll). Combo de innegables raíces más o menos experimentales (la huella de Sonic Youth es innegable), navegan entre aguas densas cercanas tanto al Post-Rock (Evening chill, Dans la lumiere du crepuscule, Línnocence revient encore/Reve d´ivresse, Hibou…) como a temas con acentos más clásicos (Night stroll, con la influencia de la guitarra de Link Wray); o como a experimentos más mundanos como Hypernoir, una especie de blues rural que marca un hiato en el disco; Hibou, tema más acústico, instrumental o Hole in the story, la última del álbum, otra canción instrumental de tintes acústicos.

“The album comprises of two points, or rather, two leitmotifs, and like the title suggests with the break “/”, it is the struggle primarily between the second track “Dans La Lumiere Du Crepuscule” and the sixth, “L’innocence Revient Encore / Rève D’ivresse”. I suspect treating these two songs and their lyrics is a task for later, but the others act like supplementary instrumental moments, each with a special detail or contribution to its overall fluctuations. Unfortunately, this also makes the experience as a whole rather short-lived, but the double bind reigns throughout, requiring nothing more, nothing less.
A word on these other songs. As the title track with mysterious ease draws you slowly into it, a repetitive low-thumping detuned riff resounds, gradually circling and gaining in strength towards an ineluctable intensity almost unbearable — reaching an infinitely graceful house of noise. “Night Stroll” comes off the first real motif in the album, seducing you further with lazy, tremolo ridden guitars into, and occasionally accompanied by, some dead crashing sound as if someone’s nerves are being roasted on a spit. Some pristine beauty vs ugliness beneath. “Hypernoir” brings the album to a level of rich primitivism (via Fahey or Loren Connors), and like many other songs, into the sublime with carefully chosen elements that contract degrees of heat and light — saxophones and owls, howls and oboes. The last two songs leave you feeling like pieces of driftwood, an appropriate end, suggestive of purging or cleansing or finality (somehow “Hold In The Story” is reminiscent in effect of “Don’t Come Down Here”). All these songs hang as clouds dusting two gracefully refined movements, a dagger and its thrust.
—— I never get the feeling I’m being lied to. My déjà vu is only a sadistic enjoyment of past music or symbols relived, beautifully rewritten. I adore music like this. From the first chord everything feels visceral, the mood I can almost taste it in my tongue, like electricity; a mystery that is timeless. Darkly blue notes, south of the soul.” (the passion of indie music)
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