KRENG
L’Autopsie Phénoménale De Dieu
MIACD010
Miasmah Recordings 2009
18 Tracks. 55mins19secs

Buy: CD | iTunes

Miasmah’s ill and sombre hinterlands welcome their latest dweller in Belgian artist Pepijn Caudron. When he started as Kreng some years ago, Caudron’s work was entirely sample-based, his music borrowing from classical, jazz, electronica or improvisation. Over the years, Caudron developed a more cinematic feel to his work, leading him to work on soundtracks for films and theatre, and in particular with a company named Abattoir Fermé, based in Mechelen, half way between Brussels and Antwerp, where Caudron resides. While he is credited with a number of original pieces for both film and theatre, the ambitiously titled L’Autopsie Phénoménale De Dieu is his first official release, and follows a couple of digital EPs.

Dark, haunting and unsettling, this album is undeniably at home on Erik Skodvin’s Miasmah, yet its theatricality gives it a certain grandeur that is new to the label. Caudron weaves orchestral sections, odd snippets of film dialogues, prepared instruments and found sounds into a tense and epic soundtrack which is in turn haunting, beautiful, awkward, enigmatic or surreal. Voices often betray terror or sadness, melodies are voluntarily deconstructed or repetitive, sounds are inflicted in salves, to create complete sensory overload.

While Pepijn Caudron plays most of the instruments here, he occasional gets a helping hand from Frederik Van De Moortel (sounds), Eric Thielemans (percussions) and Jeremy Calbert (piano) to create extra layers and accentuate the gloomy nature of the record. Due to how L’Autopsie Phénoménale is conceived, it is difficult to isolate any particular moment. Instead, this record seems to go through various phases, from the relatively serene Nar De Sex and Tinseltown to the more tortured Kolossus or In De Bern (Part 3) or Het Wordt Ouder, which signals a further descent into a murky world where titles such as Transmutation Device, Aspyxia, Vomitor and Mythobarbital all seemingly refer to a murder in progress, while the music takes on a much more mournful tone. From there on, Caudron deals primarily with drones, heavy bombs dropped on the last section of the record, until the closing Merope finally brings a slightly lighter note, as to facilitate a return to normality.

L’Autopsie Phénoménale De Dieu is a rare record, even to Miasmah’s high standards. Pepijn Caudron’s experience with theatre feeds through the whole of the record and brings a particular narrative which, although pretty enigmatic, gives these compositions direction and purpose. This very mature and controlled record also shows Caudron as a truly gifted musician and sound artist, who can create and destroy atmospheres at will, and who may just have delivered Miasmah’s best records to date.

4.7/5

Kreng (MySpace) | Miasmah
Buy: CD | iTunes