French Duo Hovers Between Real and Surreal

Avallon's Aurélie Barbé and Benoît Rocco

/ By Marc Weidenbaum

20160209-avallon

Avallon is the French duo of Aurélie Barbé and Benoît Rocco. Their combination, respectively, of electronic harp and vibraphone make for a genteel ambience. In “Une Autre Rive,”a third element enters the flow, a field recording of lapping water. Their instruments hover between the real and the surreal, between the documentary audio and a pervasive digital processing that snags pitches, tones, and textures and pushes the work beyond traditional notions of musicianship and into a realm of sonic experimentation.

Track originally posted at [soundcloud.com/avallonmusic](https://soundcloud.com/avallonmusic/une-autre-rive). More from Barbé at [soundcloud.com/aureharp](https://soundcloud.com/aureharp). The above picture of the duo is from the Avallon Facebook page, [facebook.com/avallonmusic](https://www.facebook.com/avallonmusic). Avallon is based in Paris, France.

A Brief Arc of Narrative-Laced Noise

With Forelight's “In the Eye of the Storm”

/ By Marc Weidenbaum

“In the Eye of the Storm”is a brief arc of narrative-laced noise. It transitions through states, through stages, pausing on occasion, each new phase of static and tone surfacing from what preceded it. It originates with a foment of rapidly shifting chaos. A slowly pulsing drone emerges while the short-circuit flare subsides. Henceforth there are many short-term shifts, from slightly more rhythmic material, like a mallet instrument heard in a white-noise rain, to more fractured scenes, in which the ear struggles momentarily for a modicum of foundation. Throughout the randomness is never tantamount to confusion. The piece is grounded with that mallet-like pulse, and even those shifts occur with an orderliness that provides an underlying sense of orientation — comfort in the storm.

Track originally posted for free download at [soundcloud.com/forelight](https://soundcloud.com/forelight/in-the-eye-of-the-storm). More from Forelight at [forelight.bandcamp.com](https://forelight.bandcamp.com/).

A Moment of Reflective Calm Before All Hell Breaks Loose

This is "Melting Square" by Suss Müsik, with Marc Manning

/ By Marc Weidenbaum

Suss Müsik refers to his music as “Post-classical ambient minimalism for crepuscular airports,” which seems about right. The track “Melting Square” is a flowing amalgam of overlaid guitar patterning: strumming electric beneath louche waveforms amid spaced-out echoes. It’s like the midpoint music from a Michael Mann film, a moment of reflective calm before all hell breaks loose. The track, which teams Suss Müsik with musician Marc Manning, itself gets calmer as it proceeds, the strumming eventually fading out entirely in favor of the voluminous echo, that echo then fracturing into a quietly intense, psychedelic field of ghostly twinkling.

Track originally posted at [soundcloud.com/suss-musik](https://soundcloud.com/suss-musik/melting-square). There’s no active external links on his SoundCloud page, but the easily Google-able [sussmusik.com](http://sussmusik.com/) has a promising “Website coming soon / We’re on it” dated February 3 of this year.

What Sound Looks Like

An ongoing series cross-posted from instagram.com/dsqt

/ By Marc Weidenbaum

Spotted on a walk to the ocean, this is a marvel of truly mediocre upgrades. The added plastic buttons make you wonder if the individual tenants were left by an absentee landlord with the responsibility to replace faulty equipment themselves, and to ponder just how ragged the original hardware was that it made sense not to rewire it. Then again, perhaps the buttons are assigned to unlabeled sublets for mothers-in-law, or even for small businesses. Maybe what appears to be lazy is in fact a hasty badge of entrepreneurial zeal.

An ongoing series cross-posted from instagram.com/dsqt.

An Enticing Sonic Interiority

From Netherlands-based Kopenz

/ By Marc Weidenbaum

“Modderlaars” is the sort of track that is quiet enough to draw you in and dense enough to then creep up and surround you. By all rights, the minimal materials should seem tattered and light. And yet they accumulate with an unmistakable hardness, like thick musty glass, acknowledging the world but still blocking it out. Throughout is a steady pulsing that has a blood-in-the-ear intensity, especially on headphones. But much as the sounds are thin yet strong, the pulse is pounding yet slow. The result is an enticing sonic interiority. You can luxuriate in it, but you also cannot escape.

Track originally posted at [soundcloud.com/kozepz](https://soundcloud.com/kozepz/modderlaars). More from Kozepz, of Eindhoven in the Netherlands, at [kozepz.bandcamp.com](http://kozepz.bandcamp.com).