BEE MASK - When We Were Eating Unripe Pears

Chris Madak aka Bee Mask is one of the names "historically" tied to the Spectrum Spools imprint. A longtime friend of "boss" John Elliott, it was Madak himself who kicked off the label's activity - born out of the womb of Editions Mego - with the reissue of "Canzoni dal laboratorio del silenzio cosmico". Musically, Madak is a genuine sonic explorer: with a full thirteen albums to his name across LPs, CD-Rs and cassettes, he has ventured into every untouched corner of that experimental electronic music so indebted to the kosmische pioneers, born in the Nineties but only managing to carve out real relevance in more recent times.

Arriving just a few months after the nostalgic "Vaporware/Scanops", a kind of homage to the near-infinite potential of the sampler, "When We Were Eating Unripe Pears" stands as a summary of the American synthesist's previous research: the sampler still plays a role of primary importance, but now it has to share the stage with the psycho-ambient alienations already present on "Hyperborean Trenchtown" and with the acid-cosmic concoctions of the pieces collected on "Elegy For Beach Friday".

The first thing that becomes immediately apparent - and perhaps the record's biggest flaw - is the total lack of dialogue between the forms mentioned above: the three "musical souls" alternate from track to track, but very rarely trade off their respective ambitions, resulting in an evident split of the individual tracks into three separate groups, which moreover are also uneven in quality.

Standing out above the rest are three neo-cosmic jams, soundtracks for as many surreal journeys: the title track leads us into a freezing sublunar universe before landing in the artificial Eden (just look at the artwork to believe it) of "Rain In Coffee", while the galloping "The Story Of Keys And Locks" transports "In Den Gärten Pharaos" by Popol Vuh into the Fourth World.

Lesser, though not by much, are the segments making up the opening pair, devoted entirely to organic sounds: "Frozen Falls" preps the listener for immersion amid crackles and sine waves, and "Moon Shadow Move" mixes bells, stalactites, unease and jolts. With this five-track structure, the record would come close to excellence: but Madak's plans are derailed by two "sonic terrorist" strikes, materializing in the Drumm-esque harsh noise of "Pink Drinq" and in the mix of musique concrète and sine waves of "Fried Niteshade", which doesn't come remotely close to the levels of the latest Mika Vainio.

"When We Were Eating Unripe Pears" presents us with the full sonic spectrum of Bee Mask, with all the elements that make it up, from the most distinctive to the least interesting. It's a record born with the aim of summing up the musician's (still few but extremely intense) years of activity, even if it does so with his now-familiar, inexhaustible urge to surprise.

When it succeeds, the result is strong enough to withstand its own self-destructive tendencies. The latter, however, still help keep the record from reaching a true appointment with excellence, postponed - one has to believe - to a future that's nonetheless not far off.

Successful, on the whole, but nothing more.

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21/11/2012