“A compilation that undoubtedly brings together one of DiN's finest periods can only be a masterpiece”
1 Coil 4:34
2 Airstrip One 4:10
3 Revolve 5:17
4 Tout ce qui a lieu 4:16
5 Plector 3:38
6 Cycles 4:33
7 Tellus Mater 4:12
8 Rings 5:06
9 Air in the Air 4:07
10 Hyperincandesent 3:18
11 Neverheart 5:32
12 Floating in the Meme Pool 2:46
13 Parallax 5:02
14 Le nombre des noms 3:48
15 Acentria 4:48
16 Ministry of Truth (Minitrue) 4:58
17 Dorothy Spearhead 10 4:31
18 Harmonic Pathways 3:46
(CD/DDL 78:20) (V.F.)
(Berlin & England Schools Electronica)
Normally, it takes for the label DiN 3, or even 4, years to reach the amount of 10 releases before another iNDEX-type collection follows the last one. We're talking about a regular album, not one available only as a download. So, there's no extract from Modulations III here. But for this 8th edition of iNDEX, it took Ian Boddy just 17 months to produce iNDEX08. An indication that electronic music (EM), under the sign of modular synth, and creativity are at their best in the DiN kingdom. From Hyperincandescent (DiN71), by Polypores, to Lyonel Bauchet's Tractatus Lyra-Organismus (DiN79), the English label's top man has mixed another series of 18 tracks that follow each other in a new musical perspective. iNDEX08 flirts with the 79-minute mark of music that can be listened to in a fraction of a lifetime and without interruption, to the delight of music lovers. Because the sound, audacity and creativity rhyme with England and Berlin School styles, and also with the Electronica and/or IDM genres and those cinematic panoramas from which the sonic textures are DiN's law.
It begins with the maestro himself offering an extract from the title track of his album Coil. He goes to the heart of it and offers this deliciously rhythm section faithful to a marathon man running beneath a sky and the disaster of its stars. This is followed by Airstrip One from the excellent 1984 album by English duo d'Voxx. An album I highly recommend by the way! Its dark, resonant rhythm matches that of Coil, with a more Electronica essence. The hypnotic and harmonic sequences of Revolve, from Boddy & Wollo's album of the same name, which dance over a suggestive and dark tone Moog sequencer are also in symbiosis with the Berliner structure of iNDEX08's first track. The mix of guitar and sequencer here is unique! From Berlin School, our ears follow the evolution of this compilation towards a more Electronica structure, but in the dystopian cinema style of Tout ce qui a lieu, out of Bauchet's Tractatus Lyra-Organismus. Its melancholy ending mingles with the twisted undulations of Plector, a gloomy Berlin School crawling on its organic beats that Parallel Worlds offered us at the end of 2022. The murky opening of Cycles, from Node's Singularity album, suits Plector's finale very well. The track develops a frenetic rhythm with jumping keys that haven't eaten an ounce of rhythm for moons. That's what I wrote in my review in last April. This perfect arrangement of rhythms is tempered by the atmospheric and dramatic Tellus Mater from the Revolve album. Coil's superb Rings puts the rhythmic structure initiated by Boddy's title track back in place. This is one of the best tracks in modern EM of 2022! The Homeland of Electricity was a real revelation for my ears in 2022. A bold and creative album, Ian Boddy chose the ambient rhythm of a soft downtempo and the unearthly ambiences of Air in the Air as the first extract from this Scanner album. The second one is Acentria. It rolls between the ears with the same impact as Airstrip One.
It is rather difficult to choose 2 extracts from Polypores' Hyperincandescent album, since it contains two 22-minute long tracks. However, Ian offers the most ethereal and melodious portion of the long title track, while he chooses one of the rhythmic sections of Floating in the Meme Pool, a spasmodic rhythm traced by the zigzag course of the sequencer, to better represent the values of this album which is aimed before all to ears that like boldness and creativity. Between these 2 tracks, we find the semi-ambient and the semi-electronica rhythm of Neverheart. A track from Surface 10's comeback album on DiN after an absence of almost 7 years. The 2nd single from the album A Stray Ending, Dorothy Spearhead, with its hip-hop meeting a downtempo movement, can only make us hope that Dean De Benedictis won't take another 7 years before offering DiN another opus. A great album of Psybient, Electronica and IDM, if you ask me! Boddy extracts the England School rhythmic essence from the lengthy Parallax, the track exceeding 13 minutes in Singularity, to give that Berliner essence to the second half of iNDEX08. Le nombre des noms, from Bauchet, and the cinematic ambience of a dark universe bring us back to more atmospheric music. Scanner's Acentria flows very well here! Ditto for Ministry of Truth (Minitrue), from d'Voxx, which also goes for a wave-like rhythm structure that gradually flirts with a very catchy Electronica. Harmonic Pathways ends this iNDEX08 as it ended the Bakis Sirros album, with a meditative mood music where the darkness of Plector flirts with the skies of Brian Eno.
DiN's last 9 albums have all flirted with excellence. I even gave 4 of them 5 stars. Although I own them all, I listened to the extracts that were taken from them in order to make iNDEX08, with my ears immersed in the joy of hearing them again in a compilation where different atmospheres and rhythmic sources merge in a sonic and musical creativity that is intrinsic to the English label. Sorted and presented in this context and order, the tracks on offer flow with another musical dimension. Although I immediately recognize the more recent titles in the DiN catalog, such as the albums from Lionel Bauchet, Node and Surface 10, as well as less recent ones like Coil and 1984, which I listen to regularly, Ian Boddy's art of remixing and presenting this collection of titles makes it a kind of new album...not a compilation. This is as true for this iNDEX08 as it is for the other iNDEX albums. Excellent from A to Z!
Sylvain Lupari (August 5th, 2023) *****
Available at DiN Bandcamp
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