Born Sasu Ripatti, Vladislav Delay grew up listening
to jazz and names Philly Joe Jones, the drummer with
the first incarnation of the Miles Davis Quintet, as
one of his major influences. Yet, his music is firmly
set into electronic territories, with none of his jazz
roots clearly contributing to his work. After experimenting
with mixed live/electronic formations, Delay began producing
purely electronic-based music. His first EP, Kind
Of Blue, an obvious reference, was released on
his own label, Humme, in 1998, and was quickly followed
by releases on Chain Reaction and Thomas Brinkmann’s
Max.Ernst labels. His first album, Ele, published
on small Australian independent label Sigma Editions,
arrived in 1999, but it is with its follow up, Multila,
released a year later on Berlin-based Chain Reaction,
that his name became better known.
Dark, experimental and deeply organic despite its minimal
sound structures and glitches, Delay’s music has,
over time, progressively been stripped of any clear
rhythmic element, allowing for wider sonic developments
and less constrained musical structures, often producing
tracks clocking at well over ten minutes. Delay’s
third album, Entain, saw the Finn moving to
the now defunct Mille Plateaux. The album featured two
tracks previously released on Ele, together
with three new compositions. His next project, Anima,
consisted of an hour-long excursion into beat-less atmospheres,
which was consequently re-constructed for Delay’s
headlining performance at the 2001 Ars Electronica festival,
which featured vocal contribution from Antye Greie-Fuchs,
aka AGF, who also form part of Luomo, another of Ripatti’s
projects, and released on Staubgold as Naima.
Since, the Vladislav Delay tag had remained pretty quiet
as Ripatti focused on other projects.
Demo(n)tracks marks the resurrection of Humme
and points at a departure for Delay. Abandoning lengthy
compositions in favour of more concise pieces, Delay
retains however here the atmospheric nature of his earlier
work but also focuses on a more industrial landscape,
re-introducing the notion of beat, although finely sliced
as to avoid any apparent repetitiveness or obvious 4/4
arrangements. Despite the distinct character of each
track, Delay articulates them in such a fashion that
they appear to form just one long journey. Despite its
mechanical structure, Demo(n)tracks appears
surprisingly organic as tones changes constantly, deep
bass sounds morph and glitches become vast waves. This
album could appear clinical and almost inaccessible,
yet hints of sumptuous melodies keep the interest up
all the way through. As Ripatti combines touches of
industrial and ambient, dropping in most part the dub
influences felt on previous records, he crafts here
a moving soundtrack which, despite its grandiose aspect,
appears terribly human and touching.
For this sixth album as Vladislav Delay, Sasu Ripatti
produces one of his most interesting, if somewhat challenging,
piece of work. Demo(n)tracks swirls around
the listener like sandstorm, yet remains firmly under
Ripatti’s control, opening new grounds for the
Finn to explore.
3.9/5 |
