Treating that of machines’ circuitry as complex organic networks to toy and experiment with, Lyon-based producer Thibaut de Raymond, alias Raymonde, rummages across envelopes and textures like a mad scientist, eager to awaken the dormant poetic power of electronics from its functional slumber.
Following multiple essays and releases issued via the likes of local French labels Mus Joutra and Zèbres Records, Raymonde strikes again with the beautifully knotty and immersive ‘Ce qui est en bas, est comme ce qui est en haut; et ce qui est en haut, est comme ce qui est en bas‘ for Brussels “for-the-bold” one, Vlek.
Traversing sonic landscapes as wildly evocative as they operate like so many portals to distinct ambient and rhythmic dimensions, Raymonde weaves a crazed, multi-source narrative of sorts, deliberately drifting away from current norms and standards to generate a shape-shifting continuum of his own.
Not by any means the most experimental ride from this eleven-track headtrip, our premiere ‘Free Tibet‘ finds the French producer submerging us into a high-altitude whirlwind of droney riffs, warlike primitive drums and easternmost folk horns sounding across plateaux and mountains like a menacing omen. The mystique-imbued equivalent to Jon Hassell jamming with local sherpas in a tiny hut in the snow-capped environs of Lhasa during the avalanche season. Mesmeric.
‘Ce qui est en bas, est comme ce qui est en haut; et ce qui est en haut, est comme ce qui est en bas’ is released via Vlek on 23rd May, order a copy from Bandcamp.
TRACKLIST
1. Le Nouveau Livre De La Jungle
2. Mer Aux Etoiles
3. La Ritournelle Des Particules
4. Soleil Arrangé
5. Major Fatal
6. Prométhée 2022
7. Free Tibet
8. No Techno
9. Resignee Absol
10. Baliana Tropic, Paroles Exotique
11. Stach Boëk