ACL readers may remember Bambi OFS (Cédric Dambrain) from the hyperkinetic EP Yakka. Since then, the Brussels artist has released the EP Kwon-9, whose remixes fleshed it out to the length of an LP, and now Minke. Should one wish, one might view these releases as a trilogy.
The covers suggest a different interpretation. The extroversion of Judith Becker’s photo of a Bebuten ceremony in Bali meets its opposite on Minke, whose cover looks like an outtake from The Last of Us. The first is exuberant and above ground; the second is foreboding and underground. On Minke, each track begins with one modular patch that bends, expands and branches; the idea of a sound “constantly on the verge of mutation” is borne out by the image.
“Spe” begins in a crunchy fashion, no beats within earshot, only the suggestion that they lie in wait past the periphery. One feels a frisson of foreboding, like a dam about to burst. Then “Population IV” leaps into the frame like a ravenous, infected beast. Snarling, sublimated voices further the sense of something underground, while the industrial timbre suggests a forlorn future. Is this what Bali dancers might sound like after a global apocalypse?
“Tête” is intensely polyrhythmic, a cascade of rhythms surrounding a robotic voice. The track title suggests intellectual music, while the tone suggests computers, the true origin stuck in-between. Is it mere coincidence that the title of the percussive “VVV” is also the abbreviation of a company that produces lubricants for machines? Or that “UNS (Ultimate Nike Smoke)” is both the name of a shoe and a sounding rocket? Together, Yakka and Minke are like life and anti-life, present and dystopian future, documentary and sci-fi. Thankfully, the one thing they do share is an infectious energy: an invitation to dance, whether healthy or infected, above ground or below. (Richard Allen)
a closer listen 