RELEASE: The Clouds Know
ARTIST(S): Vilod
REMIXERS:
LABEL: Mana Records |
GENRE: LOSSLESS, Minimal, Tech House
RELEASED: 2019-12-13
AVAILABLE FORMAT: 320Kbps +FLAC
DOWNLOAD SIZE: 154.56 MB
TOTAL TRACKS 11
- Vilod – Ohnesarg (08:05) key / BPM
- Vilod – Jazzversuch (05:36) key / BPM
- Vilod – Flump (06:26) key / BPM
- Vilod – Clop (06:18) key / BPM
- Vilod – Wassernova (04:29) key / BPM
- Vilod – Scheiss On Your Diamond (03:59) key / BPM
- Vilod – Schalen Geschmack (09:09) key / BPM
- Vilod – Rahmstar (05:09) key / BPM
- Vilod – Mosaic (05:09) key / BPM
- Vilod – Jungsstück (06:40) key / BPM
- Vilod – Pfaul (06:20) key / BPM
Total Playtime: 01:07:20 min
Vilod AKA Ricardo Villalobos and Max Loderbauer
Can academic music be vibey? Some of the austere, clinical work of artists like Alva Noto or Thomas Brinkmann foregrounds process and concept over instinct and emotion. Conversely, you could pontificate about the themes embedded in the work of DJ Sprinkles or Don’t DJ, or just as easily absorb the music on a purely pleasure-seeking level. In cases where jazz and electronic music intersect, the combination often winds up in intellectual realms, where the spiritual impulse of jazz is boiled down to binary. Though there’s a chinstroking bent to the music of Ricardo Villalobos and Max Loderbauer, their work has tapped into a fertile patch of inspiration, shaking up the principles of minimal techno with the loose, expressive qualities of jazz.
Vilod, as the duo now call themselves, began this journey into modern, minimalist jazz fusion with 2011’s Re: ECM. At the time Villalobos said, “The idea of mixing acoustic and electronic music is a step forward for us as electronic musicians… as a means of expression.” Their first collaborative album as Vilod, Safe In Harbour, saw them channel those avant-garde ideas into something more energetic. It wouldn’t have converted people who dislike highbrow minimal techno, but, as Angus Finlayson pointed out, the pair “made some accommodation for visitors.” Check the snappy, insistent mid-range perc anchoring “Mulpft,” a simple tool that spiced up the music’s experimental feel. In their own obfuscating way, Vilod got pretty funky.
On their follow-up album, on Mana, things get off to an uncertain start with the wheeze of a blown-out trumpet and scratchy, salt-shaker percussion. So far, so nerdy. Then, without warning, an acute melodic line breaks cover and an elastic rhythm section fires up. It has Villalobos’ fingerprints all over it. It’s the keys that make it, conjuring up the noirish ambience that worked so well on Safe In Harbour while also harking to the spectral ambiguity of the melodies in LP5-era Autechre.
Autechre are often name-checked in reviews like this, but tracks like “Ohnesarg” and “Clop” undeniably echo the Rochdale duo’s late ’90s sound. However that impacts Vilod’s pioneering credentials, there are few other artists who can achieve such complexity while retaining some sense of funk. Vilod’s ever-shifting rhythmic systems are a knotted marvel, guided by a machine logic far removed from grid-based constraints. The live drum sounds that dominate “Jazzversuch,” especially, show this network in action.
The Clouds Know can be more forbidding than its predecessor. The seasick pad on “Flump” feels like an arcane ode to the dark ages. “Rahmstar” groans under funereal orchestration. But Vilod’s jazzy aspirations are clear in the scatty modal acrobatics of “Wassernova,” a joyously alive piece with wild orchestral stabs that sound like a Fairlight CMI dropped into Sun Ra’s Arkestra.
It’s only on the shapeless tonal fluttering of the last track, “Pfaul,” where the duo lose their way. Music this technical will always dance precariously on the brink of tedium, but Vilod’s latest LP is galvanised by its jazz inspiration. You can sense Villalobos and Loderbauer working as conduits for a particular musical attitude—one that depends on skill, experience, and, of course, something less tangible.
