Jerome Chassagnard - The Time From Underneath

A very enjoyable second solo record from one of the men who brought us The Prayer Tree project last year. His is a style which draws the listener into an almost aquatic setting. There's a fair amount of funk going on in the beats but it's impressive how in the midst of so many things going on he has these melodic key lines which bubble up as if from the ocean floor during an eruption. Tactile yet tectonic, Jerome brings some required listening to one's ears with "The Time From Underneath". Take a deep breath and down the fathoms you'll go.

I like the exploratory feel, the sense of the unknown which his tracks are imbued with. You're right down there in the Mariana trench aboard the Trieste observing all manner of exotic, nocturnal life. I should qualify, it's always nocturnal in the depths and much like this album, there's an alienated sensuality to the proceedings. Everything sounds as though it is directed in a descending order, from the subtle accents of tone to the magnificent elegance one hears in the penetrating atmospheric pads he employs faultlessly. Much like a Clown fish escaping the doom an Anemone presages for all others, we're safe within a luxuriant, forbidden tapestry of slowly shifting electronic tides underpinned by rock solid programming which only serves to highlight the details of the surroundings.

This is a very riveting album, the kind of output you'll hear only once or if you're lucky twice in your lifetime. For all those who decry the 'inhumanity' synthesized music supposedly embodies, I say that "The Time From Underneath" is very much a celebration for the senses. There are more than enough swirling emotional undercurrents here; Chassagnard has crammed his latest full of grace and personality. Anyone who listens to this creation with even a slightly open mind will appreciate the insular and cerebral end results each cut on here delivers. That's the thing, there isn't one bad entry on here, not one. I've heard many artists from the Mikrolux label hint at doing work of this caliber but it generally is tethered to a beat or some kind of highly processed vocal. Not the case with what this guy has composed.

You could skip about and completely jumble up the order of titles but the conclusion would still be the same: a succulent feast for the senses. There is joy, there is sorrow, there is curiosity... but behind all of this, at the vanishing point of perspective there is a mind sparkling with creativity directing it all, brimming over in a torrential cascade of nuanced abandon. Surrender to the sounds you hear, they'll tantalize. Apr 12 2011