Before publishing records on Entr’ acte, Spectrum Spools, Sandwell District, Opal Tapes and now Latency, Yves De Mey has composed music for performing arts, film and sound installations. This is where the roots of the Belgian are based and their shoots germinate in »Bleak Comfort«. This third album has to be thought from the motion, maybe even from the performance dance. That sounds paradoxical, because anyone who hears this will ask themselves: How am I supposed to dance after that? Nevertheless, despite all the diversity of sounds that can dock to different styles of electronic music – American ambient, Raster and Noton, groovey Autechre, experiments with modular synthesizers – body movement is the connecting element. »Bleak Comfort« is in fact a ballet. One, that could be about machines that shut off the power. First they conquer the world timidly, from below (»Gruen«), from above (»Vecto«), and swing themselves into a waltz, danced on magnetic fields (»Mika«). Then, after the shut down, the devices fall into a lamentation over the dependence from humans (»Wearing Off«), into the last twitches (»Contrary Unto Them«). End. Curtain. The next morning the critiques: His best work so far.
Bleak Comfort
