WL//WH Review MURMURE “Les mémoires dissociatives” EP
Somewhat the closing chapter in a conceptual trilogy about the end of an intimate relationship and all the feelings of depression, anxiety, denial and acceptance that encompassed its evolution, accurately elaborated over the band’s last 3 EPs, started in 2018 with “Nos idées fantômes” through “Espace-temps” (2019) to finally arrive at “Les mémoires dissociatives”.
Formed around 2013 in Montreal, Quebec by the solid unit of Rachel Mayer and Keven Carrière with an initially cleaner and atmospheric 4-AD-tinged dream-pop sound with a dash of post-rock leanings, gradually ‘smeared’ and thickened by intoxicating mesmeric, sometimes scratching, walls of gaze guitars, finely tuned with languid and immersive contemplative respites, intersected by subtle underlying strains, with deceptively soft, suffused voices, drenched in daring allure, giving the dizzying sense of a seamlessly floating and suspended state of emotive catharsis, in which Slowdive were masters.
The EP gives shape to a vibrant, restless and chromatically vivid cathartic wandering of changing intensity and sinuously capricious pace, driven by convulsive spiralling moods in perpetual turmoil, swaying between soaring tension and inward sombre introspection.
Instantly awakens with the urgent shock of an invigorating swelling “Souffle” to give rise to an energetic wall of rumbling bass and piercing guitars ebbing and flowing in frenetic noisy tides and vibrating bittersweet interludes around fragile, angsty dual male-female energies ’embraced’ in shattered and heady memories of nihilistic dread “Be afraid those days won’t come back…And come back into my arms.”
Aching distance draws lonely longings through a glistening swinging edge of torturous twinkling strummed string reflections, swifts of emotional ringing sky-gazing surges, and dreamy, sad female vocals, left hanging “Au bord de l’abysse”.
Woozy moods surprise high-strung, wavering foaming fuzzy streams, meandering jangly crystalline guitar twines, whilst lost dual vocals drift weightlessly through the rippling “Les eaux troubles” of doubt and fear.
Anxious excitement inflames urgent angst into a restless concoction of snaky murmuring basslines, neurotic piercing guitar riffs, reverb-drenched hazes, and heart-racing drum beats to cloak the hidden pain of distant euphoric vocals and haunted nightmarish echoes in the distant memories of “Post – traumatique” bliss.
Feather-light celestial reprise finale boasts and floats into a “Collision…Au bord de l’abysse”, as the glimmering healing melancholy begins a slow ascent.
After savouring and overcoming the temptation to abandon oneself to oblivion, we are ready to start a new path, with a new awareness of one’s vulnerability and the bitterness and disenchantment of those who have known the dangerous yet pleasant addiction of love and the all-encompassing power of passion.
Likewise, the Québécois duo is poised for a new sonic venture showing an increasingly richer, enveloping and well-balanced melody/noise shoegazing sound, in constant evolution, able to give us heartfelt emotions to fill our voids.
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