Los Pélieu Lovers - Bruits De L'Ombre

The latest improvised scramble to be transmitted from the Les Disques Ominson stable comes from Los Pélieu Lovers, a trio headed up by label boss Tom Val alongside Maximilien Douche and Magali Genuite, and directly conceived as a response to the work of French beat poet, Claude Pélieu. The influence is more conceptual and process-driven than literal, turning away from what would have been a more obvious reframing of the words and towards a sonic rejoinder that utilises associated practices of collage, cut-ups and automatic writing. The results feel suitably on-brand for Val, whose work elsewhere often feels similarly free-form and intellectually-driven but still uniquely engaging. It's not easy to fully assess what it is that makes Val's work - whether here with two new collaborators or elsewhere -  so appealing. Perhaps it's that implaccable quality? Bruits De L'Ombre is unconventional and unpredictable by anyone's standards, but like, say, with Nurse With Wound (who are likely the best point of comparison here and for Les Disques Omnison as a whole) and multiple entrances to their famed List, it feels as if it's channeling its own language of sorts, something which begins to make more sense (if sense is the thing to seek) over repeated plays and new emerging contexts. Bruits De L'Ombre is at once drone, improv, minimal composition, experimental folk and sound art collage, yet not somehow specifically any of those things, which in the end likely just means you're listening to the sound of a collective sharing its own personalised sonic lexicon. As with most that is good, the meaning stands in the shadow of the idea and the feeling. That Los Pélieu Lovers should be a perplexing bunch is secondary - Bruits De L'Ombre is the Pure Expression. 
 
FFO: Nurse With Wound, Valentina Magaletti, Felicia Atkinson, Orion Music Workshop, Anima, Pôle