Glow by DE MOND

For a country with a smaller population than Moscow, Belgium must have more avant garde artists per capita than anywhere else on Earth. Or at least it seems that way. Certainly the preponderance of Belgian sound artists is a testament to something very special in the country’s water supply, and labels such as Futura Resistenza (whose motto, “Speramus meliora; resurget cineribus,” translates as “we hope for better things to arise from the ashes”) really keep things hopping.

The Glow LP represents the debut release by a new duo, composed of musicians from Brussels -- Stijn Wybouw, who also records as Kramp, and Arno de Bock, who provided drums for Hermànn among other projects. In their other lives, de Bock has displayed hard rocking tendencies, while Wybouw’s work is a whacked-out mess of collaged and red-tinted elements of all sorts. Together they waggle post-tongue treatments of musiqe concrète, hewn from non-obvious sources, with more focus on percussion and (even) rhythm than one finds in Wybouw’s solo recordings.

Which is not to infer that De Mond’s music would be easy to dance to for anyone in their right mind. Squirrely puffs of synth-dither, roughly-treated vocals and kaleidoscopic loops are piled thick and deep atop the drums, in such a way as to assure that anyone choosing to wiggle their hips to this music is doing so as a conscious act of perversion. Which doesn’t mean it won’t happen some late night in Ghent or Antwerp. But that makes it no less perverted.

While I was playing this album, my wife commented that the title track had sonic similarities to parts of PiL’s “Metal Box” (which was of course a club hit in the summer of ‘80), but the track “Glow” is somewhat anomalous. Most of de Bock’s drumming displays more dedication to free music’s abstractions, and Wybouw’s recording history suggests he has never met a beat he is unwilling to subvert. The amount of aural guff he tosses around on “De mond spreekt vies” (“De Mond Talk Dirty”) is a testament to his continued faith in this aesthetic direction. And if we fail to salute his choice, we surrender ourselves to the gods of mediocrity.

The way it stands, De Mond’s debut LP is a creation of sheer delight. The tottering stacks of anarchic noise balance almost delicately above the roiling drum parts. And while there are occasional suggestions of song-form, these are never more specific than one of Sonic Youth’s extended musical outros. And anyone who thinks that’s too formal should find something red to lick. At once.

De Mond’s Glow LP will be a treat for those who are already fans of Belgium’s avant sub-underground scene. And it also works as a cunning entry point for those who are just discovering the outer parameters of the 21st Century’s musical art damage. So do yourself a favour and surrender to the glow.


-- Byron Coley

Futura Resistenza is a Brussels-Rotterdam based record label
"Speramus meliora; resurget cineribus"