Aleksi
Perälä, aka Ovuca, is regarded as a rather
precocious and prolific musician. Lactavent,
his first album, was in fact a collection of tracks,
ranging from electro to drill’n’bass, recorded when
he was between fourteen and twenty-one. His second album,
released a year later, recorded when he was living in
a dormitory, featured no less than seventy-one tracks
spread over two CD. Perälä now brings out
his third opus, and this is pure braindance.
Aleksi Perälä has been a fan of Richard
D. James, who incidentally is his label boss, for
years. However, listening to Wasted Sunday,
it appears that the man is now seriously developing
his own sound, and dissociating himself from Aphex
Twin’s trademark drill’n’bass, to explore other
ways to produce electronic music. If his structures
remain at times convulsive, Perälä has ditched
his teenage excitement and replaced it with space. All
along the twenty-two tracks composing this album, Perälä
allows himself more time than in his previous work to
create increasingly intricate melodies built around
minimalist structures. The outside world sometimes infiltrates
this hermetic bubble, as Perälä captures shreds
of hip-hop (Meltman/Meltdown Man), ethnic percussions
(Green Ball), classic electro (Pathon,
Char), atmospheric ambient (King Rupa Rupa),
or full-on techno (Pingis), to populate his
own universe. As every influence is slowly absorbed,
Wasted Sunday remains unperturbed, the alternance
of fully formed tracks and embryos of interludes contributing
to the osmosis and fluidity of the work. Effectively,
Perälä dispenses sounds in small doses, shaping
each one around clever beats, using voice samples to
alleviate the communication with his audience, challenging
the mind in more subtle ways, as he generates little
miniatures of intense beauty. These days, Ovuca’s music
evokes early Autechre
(Gas Bubbles, Afternoon Girl), Boards
Of Canada (Cloudbase, Innocent Pedestrian)
or Arovane (Albert Questionmark or the beautifully
crafted Dilnau), while Perälä affirms
his unique sound.
This third Ovuca album is a firm reassurance that a
new generation of electronicists is currently emerging,
as determinated to develop new ways of playing music
as were their peers ten years ago. Wasted Sunday
is a clever record, and Aleksi Perälä proves
to be one of the most creative artists to surface in
the last three years.
5/5 |
