Fescal ::: The Beautiful Neurotic [CML006]
한국의 Fescal은 아름다운 노이로제라는 이름 아래 자유롭게 위험과 아름다움, 움직임과 정적 사이을 이동한다.
Korea's Fescal freely interchange danger and beauty, current and stillness on the rightfully named 'The Beautiful Neurotic'.
The brash, abrasive soundscapes are carefully layered until they become a unified noise, sincere and rich, and somewhere along the way, lose their aggressiveness to be transformed into uplifting walls of sound.
Fescal manipulate their output with brilliance and without remorse, as the listener also becomes part of the manipulation, often using distress and suspense to make us vulnerable to the following serene, awe-inspiring moments - Vincent Fugère.
One of the first netlabel releases I reviewed this year was Guanxi’s Pixel and apparently Fescal, the artist behind Beautiful Neurotic, may or not be the same person. However, good is good, so on with the review regardless if they are the same person or not. Beautiful Neurotic is a four-track LP with the first track, “Cecrophia Moth”, a beautiful drone piece with noise and slight glitches that encompasses almost half the release. It is quickly followed by ”F-ck-New-York” that comes blaring in like a traffic jam of wobbling taxi cabs. And the last two tracks seem to be drones heavily mixed with field recordings. The liner notes say that Fescal uses “distress and suspense to make us vulnerable to the following serene, awe-inspiring moments.” I can’t argue with that - David Nemeth (Acts of Silence).
Korea's Fescal freely interchange danger and beauty, current and stillness on the rightfully named 'The Beautiful Neurotic'.
The brash, abrasive soundscapes are carefully layered until they become a unified noise, sincere and rich, and somewhere along the way, lose their aggressiveness to be transformed into uplifting walls of sound.
Fescal manipulate their output with brilliance and without remorse, as the listener also becomes part of the manipulation, often using distress and suspense to make us vulnerable to the following serene, awe-inspiring moments - Vincent Fugère.
One of the first netlabel releases I reviewed this year was Guanxi’s Pixel and apparently Fescal, the artist behind Beautiful Neurotic, may or not be the same person. However, good is good, so on with the review regardless if they are the same person or not. Beautiful Neurotic is a four-track LP with the first track, “Cecrophia Moth”, a beautiful drone piece with noise and slight glitches that encompasses almost half the release. It is quickly followed by ”F-ck-New-York” that comes blaring in like a traffic jam of wobbling taxi cabs. And the last two tracks seem to be drones heavily mixed with field recordings. The liner notes say that Fescal uses “distress and suspense to make us vulnerable to the following serene, awe-inspiring moments.” I can’t argue with that - David Nemeth (Acts of Silence).
Today let’s draw our attention to “Beautiful Neurotic” – an album from Korean musicians under the name Fescal. First thing, that bursts upon the eye is the opposition, which is present in the very title of the album: “beautiful” vs “neurotic” – positive quality against negative one. Then, if we look through the names of the tracks, we will notice the subsequent development of this opposition. Here, two concept lines intersect, making some kind of a “concept cross”: “Cecropia Moth” and “Quasicrystalline” on the one side and “F-ck-New-York” and “Vancouver On Fire” on the other side. The first line is represented by natural and beautiful notions, such as the moth and the fanciful tracery of quasicrystals. Obviously, these may be concerned with the “beautiful” category. “Cecropia Moth” is built up by a stable low drone, which later is accompanied by a high-toned squeal and some crackling.
The whole atmosphere is rather calm. “Quasicrystalline” begins with a troubled low drone, and, near the middle of the track, this agitation fades away, leaving place for a self-tuning mild ringing sound. Now, let’s turn to the “dark” concepts, that have some kind of a twilight state in its sense. “F-ck-New-York” is almost 7 minutes of a distorted, dirty sound, against the background of a mild white noise and a low bitrate rustling. Hearkening more thoroughly, you’ll find out the sonic spine of the track – a looped reversed sample. The general mood is aggresive, though a little bit lyrical. And the last track – “Vancouver On Fire” – is again distorted, with thorny snapping, noises and knocking. You also hear indistinct ringing drone tints. The sounding displays destruction in burning ambience. These two tracks unquestionably belong to the second, “neurotic” conceptual category.
The compositions are situated next nearest, composing in such a way the “Beautiful Neurotic” architecture, the architecture with its peculiar extremes, intercrossing antagonistic vectors. Also, pay attention to the cover picture of the album. There you can see two sides – the face of a young girl, which is half hidden by her hair. Though it is only the hair, it is like the absorbing shadow – the dark hypostasis of a human nature. So, feel the discrepancy of Fescal’s “Beautiful Neurotic” Alexei Biryukoff (Agniworld)
Label: Camomille Music – cml006. Format: 4 × File, MP3, Album, 320 kbps
Country: Canada. Released:2010. Genre: Electronic. Style: Abstract, Ambient
Country: Canada. Released:2010. Genre: Electronic. Style: Abstract, Ambient
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Photography & design by Vincent Fugère & Mélanie Frechette
