French-born, Brussels-based composer & multi-instrumentalist Roxane Métayer makes a significant step closer to the light with a first LP for avant outpost powerhouse KRAAK, a union so fitting it's remarkable it's taken this long to take shape. And it's a collaboration that seems to have precipitated a change of sorts in the artist. Within the context of the vast array of music Métayer has been involved with over the past five years+, Chênes certainly qualifies as her most extrovert to date. A first-time reading might attribute that to the presence of Métayer's voice, something we'd really yet to hear on record but is a consistent and dominant aspect of nearly all of these five tracks, sing-speaking like a French-language early Laurie Anderson. Comparison to the NY downtown avant garde don also carries over into the music itself, which is still partially shaped by the unusual sound design elements of previous albums like Adage Vestige and Perlée de Sève, but these are, relatively speaking of course, far less abstract compositions, lit up with surprising melodies and rhythms just as they are by Métayer's characteristic violin drones. These tracks certainly won't be bothering the airwaves anytime soon (which damns the airwaves more than it does the artist), but they are memorable, defined and garrulous in ways you might not initially have connected with her other records. The accompanying press release describes Chênes as a series of 'celebrations of growing life, and the pleasure and joy it brings', and I find it hard to argue otherwise. Not quite avant-pop, but imagine if this is what that term meant? In that sense, Chênes opens up new possibilities for artist and audience alike.
FFO: Laurie Anderson, Jenny Hval, claire rousay, Vanessa Amara, Lia Kohl
