Israel Quellet's second album for Sub Rosa is, once more, a mixed bag of short pieces going in various directions, for various instrumentations. The menu includes pieces for church organ (gothic, gloomy, almost
Magma-like), for percussion and saturation (extremely noisy but tightly controlled), for a fitness rower (more rambunctious noise), for footsteps and knocks on stairs (very early musique concrète-sounding), and one piece featuring vocals -- a distorted recitation accompanied by percussion, organ, and miscellaneous sounds. Despite the diversity in sounds, the album presents a unified musical vision that could be described as dark, solemn, martial (even the noisier tracks retain a march-like pulse, and that probably explains why
Magma comes to mind), and unique. For
Quellet's music seems to operate outside the usual genres and esthetics, even in avant-garde terms. Schools of thoughts are ignored, eras clash, the needles are glued in the red, and the listener comes out of
Soni Sclavus with the feeling of having experienced something special and truly original. No, "original" is not the right word, for it implies something new, and
Quellet isn't doing anything that hasn't be done before. But it feels as if he willingly ignores that fact and approaches everything he does anew. There's also the fact that you would expect a lo-fi album from the above description, but
Quellet proves to be a studio wizard: the sound quality is amazing, akin to what you find on academic electro-acoustics records. So let's call
Soni Sclavus unique, although out-of-time would be even more appropriate. ~ François Couture