Vive la Void

There are numerous examples of how solo projects can illuminate and reveal the performer’s contribution to the group project. For every solo Beatle’s creation it was always apparent of their input into the creative process, their individual contributions articulating their part in the collective art (c.f. Ringo’s dulcet intoning on ‘Octopuses’ Garden’). The ensemble is always the more than some of its parts.

A flip side to this being Andrew Ridgeley, his role as ‘mate of George’ denied the world the fruits of his endeavours when he went Wham-free. His post-rapera pop-rockaria ballet gathers dust in the vaults.

For Sanae Yamada, one half of lunar twosome Moon Duo (the other Wooden Shjips’s hirsute psych-lone Ripley Johnson), her key part in the space-rock couple is here for all to hear on her debut LP.

Evolving from the experiences of touring and recording (2017’s light/dark opuses 'Occult Architecture Vol. 1 & 2') these are seven sonic templates of synth-etic aestheticism, a soundscape of found scope on ‘the subject of the changeable nature of memory and perception’ and the ‘invisible traces’ left behind. However, this is no ‘Orgone’ conclusion.

Opener ‘Matter’ checks the pulse and gets the motorik running, a throbbing, crackling smorgasboard of hypnotica: set adrift on memory’s bliss.

A nagging repetitive key-stab drives ‘Red Rider’ (in the vein of Buzzcocks’ ‘Something’s gone wrong again’), Yamada’s breathy vocals enhancing the trance-central altered state.

Disco doyen Giorgio Moroder’s fingerprints linger over ‘Death Money’, all pulsating electro-noir. ‘Smoke’ is a stentorian signal from alien lands. ‘Blacktop’ and ‘Devil’ both echo Vangelis’s Blade Runner sombre timbres that creates a dystopic ‘n’ mix of aye, aye A.I.

‘Atlantis’ could also be titled ‘Music for lost continents’, an ambient transient submerge low and below, she knows Eno’s gamelan plan.

Like fellow electromantics Ladytron (who return this year), Vive La Void fill the gaps other ears cannot reach.