Yet another helping of Menche-y goodness – this time on vinyl and scheduled to be released in June. I am a huge fan of Menche’s collaborative work and this time he gets together with Anla Courtis, the Argentinian experimental guitarist. I’m a tad embarrassed that this is the first time I’ve heard a record featuring Courtis. After hearing this, it certainly won’t be my last.
Yagua Ovy is based on an Argentinian Werewolf myth of the “blue dog”. The two tracks are an amalgam of Menche’s processed field recordings and Courtis’s instrumental experimentation. The two work very well together. Menche’s treated nature recordings are always disorienting. Actually strike that – most of what Menche does full stop is disorienting. To hear and then try to process the sounds of nature after Menche has finished often leaves me with the feeling that something sinister had been created. Nowhere have I had that effect more than on the first track, Runa-Uturunco, where walls of static and squall wash over and often intimidate the creepy ambience created by Courtis. What Courtis does has to be heard to be fully appreciated. It is almost like someone is walking through fields of discarded bones – a chalky, hollow, percussive effect which lasts for the first seven minutes before yielding to cacophony. I almost felt that I was being stalked.
The second track El Relincho has Courtis’s guitar experimentation overlaying what initially sounded like static but once the track progressed, revealed itself to be akin to someone struggling through banks of snow. If I felt like being stalked on the first track, the second is all about fear and flight. It’s both ominous and terrifying.
Menche says that the sound he creates is very controlled and is designed to provoke the listeners imagination. I think this is one of the best representations of that intent. Excellent. If you are lucky enough to have kept your record player then Yagua Ovy can be pre-ordered from www.miemusic.co.uk
Ducks Battle Satan 