Another NWW List-like aberration from the desk of Les Disques Omnison, as label boss Tom Val unites with Laure Boer to form Reliques de Roses. Without Nurse With Wound, I wonder how else we might contextualise this kind of thing? Blistered and improvised art-damaged free folk of this nature isn’t exactly of household name status, though it certainly has its antecedents - Smegma, Svitlana Nianio, Vox Populi! and perhaps more recently the likes of Brannten Schnure. Otherwise, we’re very much in thrall to the kind of free-form thinking that’s defined LDO from the outset. Val is a keen collaborator, and has made and released a lot of different music in the past five-plus years, though it all often leads back to a certain kind of sensibility. Sound and texture frequently take precedence over melody and structure throughout Reliques de Roses, forming its own alien terrain that at first listen feels tricky to comprehend before starting to express a unique internal logic that I suppose really is just the product of two people in the process of seeking shared understanding. The sounds here are often metallic and detached, though also strangely compelling, a site of collapsing buildings you can’t turn away from, particularly coming to life in the record’s latter stages as Boer’s voice comes more to the fore and the fragmented abrasions and electronic expulsions begin to find a previously unheard rhythm. At its best, Reliques de Roses are a testament to instinctive music making, operating far beyond the edges of convention that carves out a space for fringe understandings. It’s an entirely necessary pursuit.
FFO: Nurse With Wound, Vox Populi!, Smegma, Svitlana Nianio
