Songs06.txt is up for immediate release (AUG 2007) and it is the French recording artist Vs_price return to the Expanding label. After his much talked about album debut on the same label in 2002 (wow, time does really fly when you’re having oh so much fun). Songs06.txt (an impossible title for an album, but never mind that) contains 10 collage-like tracks and they all have a strong work-in-progress feeling to them. And I for one am fully prepared to believe that their origin is supposedly mainly from various live performances made during the past years. This is also in my mind reflected onto the album itself and that is one of the reasons it displays several musical directions at once from the acoustic to the quite energetic and electronic. Where track number eight entitled Musicman is an example of the latter with its high paced beats and looped melody fused with a touch of glitch, completely contrasting the forerunners it is an interesting track. I can’t help but wondering if maybe Songs06.txt is the perfect testament to the breakwater that can be heard so clearly within the narrow field of electronic music movement dealt with here and where the “victorious” path is surprising or in any case disappointing. Let the machines, be machines… that aside, let it be said that Vs_price’s second full-length is far from being generic and that is is most definitely contemporary. The packaging with its classic striking front cover photograph is beautiful and the overall production is executed to perfection. Vs_price and Expanding line-up the 28th release and do so with grace.
electronic desert ≡ revisited + extended