The loveable DIY label Autres Directions in Music are back with their second offering: Moulin 002. The second release is delivered by Dudley and is entitled “Seasonal LP”. This release is continuing on the musical path struck by the first release Moulin 001, where the very same artist also contributed with a remix of one of Melodium’s tracks. On “Seasonal LP” you get analogue coloured melodious electronic music. The seemingly untreated guitars looped over forward moving gentle beats and naive melody in the opening track “Adequat” is representative of this album. Quite impossible to categorise or is it pop-music in a good sense? “Fall Song” develops along the same line of thought, but it’s more loop based and the beats are just a tad heavier, not forgetting the massive strings. But I must admit that it is close to impossible not mention Wagon Christ’s “Throbbing Pouch” as the obvious reference in this particular case, that being said it’s really good track nevertheless. “Little Whril” is more up-tempo and has classic but excellent beats, the sample is eternal and probably not cleared so we’ll leave it at that, too bad it only lasts for 2 min 15 sec. The sonic ambience gets richer in “Let Down” with it’s down pitched beats and dirty sounding edits. The track with the longest title is also my personal favourite “The flower that eats the moon” got classic breakbeats and excellent understated sub bass and a playful melody, but it is the understated bassline that makes my night any day. Being obsessed with breakbeats and all… “…With Rain” returns the album to the curious untreated guitar sounds, they’re fused with beats and flute, quite original sounding actually. “Monday” features more talented loop manipulations and layered strings, leaning toward hip-hop it is still a hybrid with the breakbeats lurking around the corner and finally almost making the track succumb, but the lonely guitar is victorious in the end. “Kashcut” defies my description but it is still good. Quite nostalgic and at the same time not… “Point of Disgust” is a vocal based track, which is decidedly pop-oriented. Maybe it doesn’t really do the album justice, but the lyrics are quite convincing… The Adim label is going its own way and that is always refreshing. This label also raises some rather serious questions about the music industry, distributors, independent record labels, quality music manufacturing and so forth. One can but applaud the releases so far, what is next? Even though I personally have a hard time accepting/realising that in the world today some of the best musical things are for free at least for the consumer… that is strange.
electronic desert ≡ revisited + extended