ABOVE THE TREE - Blue Revenge

Marco Bernacchia, already the founder and mastermind behind M.A.Z.C.A. (as well as his personal projects Al:Arm!, Gallina and Magnetostok), launched the Above The Tree project back in 2002 with the self-produced cassette "Swiss Music", 50 minutes of cerebral lo-fi packed with collage, samples, electro-noise drones and found sounds (alongside perfectly judged neo-classical interludes, refined ambient passages, psychedelic folk ditties, and tsunamis of devastating noise). But it's only with "Blue Revenge" that this personal impressionistic blend of voice and guitar finds its true lifeblood. "Blue Revenge" resembles a cross between a rural meditation, a suspended nocturnal gathering by Gordon Mumma, and a postmodern fable by Italo Calvino.

"Waitin's Song" is one of the record's manifesto tracks, with gurgling loops, raga-rock electrification and a wonky chant as monstrous as it is drunk, which then swerves into a trembling hard-rock stance disfigured into a lab experiment (and finally a dreadful lullaby). Even the pensive hare krishna gait of "Disconnected Head 2" is marred by disorienting microphonics (industrial, percussive) and flying vocal cacophonies. Traces of Six Organs Of Admittance surface in "News From The End", a folk-blues riff cast as a ballad mangled by hisses and crackling samples, while echoes of Syd Barrett emerge in the diamond-cut chords and ecstatic, ambient glissandi of "In The Middle Of None", with the noises finally converging to beat out a stomp-blues tempo.

But Bernacchia gives his best in "One Day In Reverse", a beautiful arpeggio with accordion breezes and electronic drones, calm vocals and a chaotic final crescendo. New acoustic nightmares come with "Error", starting from a droning, filtered voice and a blues riff in the style of Robert Johnson, soon thrown into disarray by every sort of digital interference (toy effects, fife, assorted dissonances including that of a mobile phone) and finally thickened by an orderly glockenspiel. And then there's "Emigrated Heaven", the most complex blueprint: a rough tribal IDM beat that gradually hosts blues declamations, deep tremors and a crescendo leading to a dissonant oasis of horns and electronics. The same goes for "Future World", pure silent atonal ambience with a kazoo hymn, and "30% Of Love", a sustain of electronic trills over minimalist strumming and an obsessive folk refrain, with a layering of magical atmospheres worthy of Animal Collective.

A wild folktronica album that folds several facets of musical being into itself, from the instinctual to the illustrative, with vocals limited to a handful of unintelligible mutterings, it's a brilliant lesson in confidential composition, existing outside of everyday life. Not fully convincing on a few tracks, but always coherent. Already in circulation since mid-2007, left unreleased due to an unfortunate gap in the record industry

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08/10/2008