STRINGS OF CONSCIOUSNESS
From Beyond Love
STAUBGOLDDIGITAL17/STAUBGOLDANALOG6
Staubgold 2012
05 Tracks. 42mins27secs

Amazon UK: CD | LP | DLD US: CD | LP | DLD Boomkat: DLD iTunes: DLD Spotify: STRM

Strings Of Consciousness is a loose collective in more than one way. Formed around the nucleus of Philippe Petit and Hervé Vincenti, this free-flowing ensemble has seen a considerable number of contributors coming and going through their unstoppable revolving doors, which perhaps accounts for the vast scope covered by their music, which brings together avant-rock, jazz, experimentations, noise and pretty much anything worth any attention in between.

Although Strings Of Consciousness have released a collection of remixes and a collaboration with Angel, the project of former Pan Sonic Ilpo Vaisänen, Schneider TM’s Dirk Dresselhaus and Icelandic cellist Hildur Guðnadóttir, in between, From Beyond Love is the second in a trilogy of releases started with Our Moon Is Full five years ago. For the occasion, Petit and Vincenti have called upon a host of vocalists (Lydia Lunch, Cosey Fanni Tutti, Eugene Robinson, Andria Degens, Julie Christmas, Graham Lewis) and more or less regular contributors (Perceval Bellone, Andy Diagram, Raphaelle Rinaudo, Pierre Fénichel).

There is no precise direction for the ensemble other than a willing effort to bridge the gap between acoustic and electric instrumentation on one side and electronic processing on the other. The music itself however has a definite collective organic feel to it which is further exacerbated by the strong lyrical presence of each of the vocalists. Whilst entirely composed by Petit and Vincenti, From Beyond Love benefits from the wide spectrum of genres and influence brought in by their collaborators, giving each of these five songs a very definite and individual tone. Opening piece The Drone From Beyond Love, fronted by Made Out Of Babies lead singer Julie Christmas, harbours some deep underlying electric tension but is, for the most part, relatively restrained. By contrast, Sleepwalker appears all kaleidoscopic and polarised as Andria Degens’s deep earthy tones are refracted by the textured electricity of Hervé Vincenti’s electric guitars and Perceval Bellone’s sax, and psychedelia also infuses Finzione to the point of sounding oddly similar to the Broadcast/The Focus Group collaborative effort, Cosey Fanni Tutti appearing almost as ghostly as Trish Keenan.

Led by Wire’s Graham Lewis, Bugged has a casual tone which may surprise, especially in its first half, but once again Vinventi provides the necessary electricity which binds the piece together, and it is also true of the epic Hurt Is Where The Home Is, on which Lydia Lunch and Eugene Robinson, who both recorded separately with Philippe Petit in recent years, team up for a particularly oppressive and paranoid near-twenty-minute of twisted turntablism, underlying tension and visceral pain.

More direct and less intricate than its predecessor, and at the same time less electric and angular, From Beyond Love still retains much of the intensity which gave Our Moon Is Full its edge. This is a very different project to pretty much any of Philippe Petit’s many ventures, even if many of the contributors have, at one time or another, featured on his records. Petit’s association with Hervé Vincenti is a fruitful one, and their willingness to involve musicians from an extremely varied and vast cross-section of the experimental music scene guarantees another incredibly fine record.

4.2/5

Strings Of Consciousness | Staubgold
Amazon UK: CD | LP | DLD US: CD | LP | DLD Boomkat: DLD iTunes: DLD Spotify: STRM