Review Sonomu

A lovely release featuring two, eighteen-minute quasi-drone works created by Tobias Fischer last October.

The drone is a many-splendoured thing, and comes in so many different forms, sometimes evolving so very slowly over a long duration as to appear virtually stagnant in the listener´s ears, at others determined to evoke a creepy sense of isolation and dis-ease. Most of the time, however, the drone appears because the drone just wants to exist.

Feu Follet´s drones are of a very synthetic nature, but there is an unquestionable dynamic to them. Contrary to the usual nature of the beast, the title track makes a number of sudden, dramatic leaps and turns before getting itself caught in a loop that becomes its extended denouement.

"Larme d´Heike", on the other hand, revs up like a demon lawnmower and heads straight in your direction before stopping short an inch before your bare toes, idling threateningly. Shortly thereafter, it changes tone, as its masculine growl is emasculated, leaving the sound a mere shell of its former self, quietly spinning off into various, treated episodes contorting the original internal-combustion engine sound into unrecognizability before taking off from the ground for destinations unknown.

In the final analysis, a very beautiful mini-album.

By Stephen Fruitman