Chaton, Anne-James – “Evenements 09″ – [Raster-Noton]

This album should come with a warning, I think listening to it end to
end repeatedly could drive one insane. Literally, you will be hearing
voices, well the one deep, driving voice of Anne-James Chaton. This is a
“techno” album solely constructed from his voice, samples hyperspliced
from nothing but the nine inputs found at the end of the CD. Each input
is about 17 seconds and 90% of those 17 seconds are already looped. So
really it’s only 10-20 seconds of sound that are used to build this 30+
minute album. A percussive focus on the popping of plosive’s; whereas
we try to soften our B’s and P’s, Chaton shoots them right into the mic
so it feels like a bass drum dream. When this is dropped into a KFJC mix,
it will turn heads and ears strongly. It’s like a language lab gone to
hell. Track 3 was a nice hypnotic one for me. Possibly some humor is
lost in translation, so a frantic Francophile may get even more out of
this. There is also a nice connection to old Text-Sound euro-scenesters.
Bernard Heidsieck and Vaduz anyone? Pop is dead, but long live
experimental irritainment!

-Thurston Hunger