"À L'état Brut" prioritises the negative and the adverse, but represents it without overcoming. It’s a slow acid sting that drags the pavement on to the dance floor, blurring the blissed-out in to a slurry of psychedelia in a mode reminiscent of futuristic escapism. In a grander horizon of post-tipping point dystopia, cultural detritus is plucked from its surrounds and warped into juiced slabs of unresolved sound.
The term "à l'état brut" references Achille Mbembe's characterisation of violence in contemporary colonial occupations, as a state of rawness regardless of their interpretation by liberal social imaginaries, nor their obfuscation via rationalised technologies. Colonial power remains raw in its means and ends for those in its focus, and raw in its durational presence as intergenerational lived-memory. This release is the last in a two-part series focussed on representations of isolation in grief.
credits
released August 24, 2017
All tracks written and recorded by Fjorn Butler, 2015-16 on Wurundjeri country. Mastered by Errol Green.
A masterclass in restrained, synth sound-scaping, this album is simply gorgeous. Saturated ambient tones, gentle evolving harmonies and subtle loops combine to create something totally magical. I can’t say enough good stuff about this LP. Respect! Super Super Sounds
A new compilation of studio recordings and live rarities captures another side of ’90s experimentalists Gastr del Sol. Bandcamp New & Notable Mar 27, 2024