Giuseppe Ielasi had dealt with drones up until this point. Most of them he showed a particular knack for, not just being engaged in the technical details of it, but the emotional core. With Aix, he continues down this road.
Born in France, the album comes across as a more random version of Jan Jelinek’s “Loop-Finding Jazz Records”. Unlike Jan’s work, this isn’t as smooth. Noises of zips, aerosol cans, pieces of piano, cut up drones, and whatever else he could get his hands onto are thrown into the mix. Despite this apparently odds and ends collection of sounds, it comes across as a spry little album.
Looking at the album cover, you get a sense of what is in store for you. The bright colors and patterns should prepare you for the music. It is playful, fun, and even includes rubber bands. A rhythm does exist through most of these tracks, though it may be a bit more syncopated than expected for electronic music.
None of the tracks are titled. All are anonymous but each one has its own distinct texture. The opener is great, offering the barest of ingredients; it presents its soul out flatly to the listener. Other songs use even quieter songs to get the point across, it helps to have quiet surroundings and good headphones for this stuff, like for most 12K stuff. Track 8 in particular is beautiful, including a harp, guitar, and horns from far away.
I enjoyed this. This proves how academic exercises can bear fruit emotionally. Even though the sources are vast, there’s not Matmos-like showing off at any point. Rather than having the sounds as gimmicks, they are pieces of the whole.