maQLu - Futureghosts

For my debut review here at Brutal Resonance I've been given the EP 'Futureghosts' by maQLu. This appears to be his second effort according to their webpage as a full length album is also mentioned.

This EP seems to be taking some of it's cues from artists such as experimental diva Diamanda Galas yet all however despite it's aspirations it seems to revel in discordance for the sake of discordance. All 6 tracks try their hardest to be jarring and discordant but the songwriter seems to have forgotten the golden rule of discordance - that being that it only serves its purposes in small doses when used as a dynamic to punctuate the melody it's interrupting. The result is sadly quite hard to digest especially when the vocals come into play which are often out of key.

Production wise, some of the sounds they've created are good and a brief look through their blog exhibits a strong love for all things hardware based(refreshing in this day and age of digital VST blandness) but my aforementioned comments on the discordance dispel a lot of that potential quite quickly.

This artist seems to have their heart in the right place and as with any new project there is always room for refinement and improvement, and hopefully we will see that in their future releases. Jun 16 2012