reviews




aniline: Pixelated Orchestra
Unnamed Label 


Textura 
With Pixelated Orchestra Aniline members Alex and Flo make their full-length debut on Unnamed Label Records, also home to Phasen and Purse Candy. The Lyon-Poitiers, France-based producers' melodic-electronica sound is straight out of the classic Warp songbook with the recording's fifteen tracks offering updated riffs on early Aphex Twin, Squarepusher, and Plaid. The style is familiar—pretty analog synth melodies, jittery breakbeats, chopped vocals, occasional injections of acid gobble and mayhem of one kind or another—but the boys nevertheless bring a goodly amount of energy and enthusiasm to their material.
“Argile” immediately drops us into the middle of Richard D. James territory with a smattering of breakbeats and synthetic melodies, while the Plaid-like “Turquoise” splatters its synthesizer patterning and buzzing breakbeats with all manner of tomfoolery (a child saying “I have to go potty”). Elegant and even dramatic, “Prune” shows that Alex and Flo can exercise restraint when the mood strikes. The pretty “Méthylène” likewise charms with an uncluttered display of electric piano and synthesizer melodies, while “Ébène” is so iridescent it brings back memories of the short-lived Plone project. Radiant tracks “Ivoire” and “Écarlate” also exude a child-like wonder that enhances their appeal.
Pixelated Orchestra doesn't stray much beyond Aniline's clearly marked-out territory. A few moments of acoustic piano at the start of “Caramel” hint that it might take a surprising detour into experimental electro-acoustic music-making but the song quickly reverts to form when a funky beat structure and an array of synth melodies takes over. The album isn't without a withering moment either. “Zinzolin” revisits the kind of manic, amped-up silliness that sent many listeners running in the opposite direction when the Squarepusher-styled drill'n'bass style first surfaced. Thankfully, it's largely the exception to the rule on this otherwise fairly well-controlled collection. The release of Pixelated Orchestra suggests that with enough time having passed perhaps we'll soon see a resurgence of acid-IDM electronica in the early Warp mold, with outfits like Aniline, Kettel, and their ilk leading the way. 


Cyclic Defrost 
Aniline shares the same label as Phasen, and the sensibility is fairly similar. It is elegantly strung together electronica with great attention to detail. The question of detail, if it is to be conceived as a function of number as well as attention to precise sonic form, may very well lead to the complexity of content in patterned arrangement of this IDM style music. French producers Alex and Flo definitely pack it into their debut album scoping the terrain of pristine ambience and hyperactivity once populated only by the likes of Aphex Twin. It is how after only a decade or so this album could lay claim to being a polished and contemporary reworking of a classic mode.
There are moments, as in Caramel, which beings with a piano, as if moving to introspection, but quickly jolted out into strung wire acidic tones and jolting beats and stabs. The clever chopped up and tempered vocals on Safre, create both beat and an amusing patter over a bright melodic synth background. Zinzolin covers the area once described as rave, happy hardcore or breakcore, with an incessantly optimistic bright disposition that would be hard to keep up with the energy let alone the beat on a dancefloor. Methylene is an electronic piano ambience, more in a classical mode with effects tempering the sound and moves into a subtle drum and clap fill with modulated psychedelic effects. Final track Ebene functions well as the finish to an satiated earful, calming down with long fade out for the overexcited in their armchairs.
There could be questions with the sense of their form, it is stridently beatific, where once the original template, to which this sound is a homage, was strikingly new in form and held a sense of morphic fluidity that created the drip around sound easy to intake and acquire as a sonic wallpaper, Pixalated Orchestra comes across as a beautiful artisan replication with discrete advances on the early 90’s IDM electronic sound.
Innerversitysound


The 2ndmouse 
I can’t say for certain where I met Alex and Flo , the French duo from Notre Dame , France , who make some of the finest electronica I’ve heard in recent years. It just feels like I’ve always known them , and we enjoy a mutual enjoyment of each others’ music , so it was a very nice surprise when an airmailed jiffy envelope was shunted through my letterbox this morning , and i opened it to discover ” Pixelated Orchestra ” by Aniline .
In my brief career as a commis chef , i learned one thing that has stuck in my mind for years , and this is ” The first bite is with the eye “
If a meal looks like something you’ve  regurgitated after 3 bungee jumps , a course of laxatives and an afternoon on the trampoline , its not gonna appeal to the appetite either , so , aesthetics are important and akin to that other saying ” you never get a second chance to make a first impression “
All of this appreciation of aesthetics was fully realised when i opened the envelope and my eyes fell on the CD artwork. It almost has the aroma of coffee and the organic earthiness of a handful of soil , or the richness of liquid chocolate flowing and undulating in a jar of petrol illuminated by rays from  the sun.
This is also how I would describe the music. It is a very rare thing for me to find electronic music that I can really praise , as I find the net is oversaturated with a lot of half-assed ideas masquerading as music , when really , all they contain is a 3 note bass riff and collection of uninspiring noises glued together with a serious lack of imagination. It is when you listen to an album like ” Pixelated Orchestra ” that you realise that music isn’t something that just anyone can do. It takes imagination , and it takes the ability to dig deep within and visualize the end result before you’ve even begun , knowing that by the end you’ll have created something that has never existed before.
Given that there are millions , possibly even billions of music tracks on the planet , Aniline  have made something very distinctive , unique , and at times , intoxicatingly beautiful.  It has the delicate intricacy of a spiderweb in the rain , yet the strength of a panzer tank encased in kevlar , and it drips with ingenuity and imagination. There are more ideas in one track than some artists have on a whole album , or in their whole career.


If you consider yourself to be a connisseur of electronic music ,
this album is a MUST OWN.
Seriously , go buy this rare gem.





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