I love it when an impulse music buy just ticks all the boxes, including a whole load of boxes that you didn’t realise you had, let me re-introduce Pacific 231 Micromega, from all the way back in 2013. An ambient impulse buy after reading a review on A Closer Listen I bought this direct from Silent Media Projects and have enjoyed it ever since. Boxes ticked?
- Limited to 500 copies
- Artist named after a 1949 Jean Mitry film about trains**
- Gorgeous black and white splatter vinyl
- A wafer USB card which includes a 35 surround sound video of the LP
- Two lengthy tracks featuring glorious washes of ambient noise
- Lovely solid gatefold sleeve, incorporating a cool cutout bit that the USB sits in
A little more garish nudity and it could have been made solely for me. In fact Micromega was the inaugural winner of the 1537 Ray Manzarek memorial award for ‘the best-looking and put-together LP bought in 2013′. What more could a poor boy want and/or need?
Pacific 231 is Pierre Jolivet, a French music maker and producer, resident in Ireland and, according to one blog I read, ‘working on his PhD in Brainwave and Sensorial Perception Reception through sound, colour and space: Integrating Multi-sensory Output into performance’. What is it about musicians working in the ambient sphere?! Why do they all have to Toop out to such an extent?! Just once in my life I would like to read a biography of an ambient dude/dudette which basically read along the lines,
Dominic/Dominique from Flux Off & Die likes to spend his/her evenings watching drag racing, eating hotdogs and getting into chain fights with members of rival biker gangs
Still, we are in the realms of the cerebral here and let us be^ very clear about this, Pacific 231 Micromega is a very good ambient record indeed.
The first side of the LP, a track called ‘Koppa’ flies us off into similar territory to my beloved Orb, albeit without the crazed dialogue. The music, on both sides, is formed I believe from guitar loops that are slowed down to a glacial pace and (brace yourselves!) ‘deinstrumented’^*. ‘Koppa’ does what every good ambient piece should do, it engulfs you with a world of its’ own creation.
Second side ‘Sampi’ is a lot less restful. I don’t mind a bit of brooding ambient, bordering on disturbing at times and this is that. At times the darker passages remind me of the whole creature-lurking-in-the-marshes vibe of Brian Eno’s Ambient 4: On Land, which is praise indeed as far as I am concerned.
Now the wonderfully clever wafer USB thang is rather excellent, the footage enclosed is of various close-ups of a guitar, blended with all manner of lights and shapes – your classic psychedelic light show basically. I love the physical build of it, the ‘wafer’ is satisfyingly thick and it feels very robust; even to these big clumsy hands.
Overall Micromega is a thoughtful, cleverly put together piece, beautifully realized by the artist and Silent Media Projects. I feel very sophisticated owning this LP.
841 Down.
PS: here’s the train film, everyone likes steam trains:
PPS: Yes! I’ve done it! A third Let It Be title pun in three posts and a big ‘Yowza!’ to HMO for donating the title to me. It was just a bit more possible than Bruce’s Let It Beet (I’ll save that for when I review the Go-Go’s) and without dashing to the ELP shop I didn’t have any suitable salad based LPs I could use Lettuce Be for. This joke has now been officially retired.
*run by the very friendly and pleasant Ben Link Collins. Buy it here.
**as well as the accompanying orchestral piece by Arthur Honegger.
^see what I did there? I am THE man.
^*I read the word on the back of the LP, I think it means to ‘warp a sound so thoroughly that you cannot tell what its’ origin was’. It’s a new one on me. I’m going to try to drop it into a conversation at work this week: ‘You fuck with me, motherfucker and I will totally fucking deinstrument you – capiche?’, for example.
I want to be named after a train.
Working on his PhD in “Brainwave and Sensorial Perception Reception through sound, colour and space: Integrating Multi-sensory Output into performance’.” So he’s dropping acid in a deprivation tank and seeing what comes of it? Epic ambient tracks? Hell, I was sold at “Let it USB”.
Haha – exactly!
Also, I truly CANNOT WAIT for the new Flux Off & Die LP. I heard it’s gonna be their best yet!
Yup I can’t get enough of those hard living ambient types.
Goddamn that is awesome.
If the let it be puns have to be retired, they went out on top here!
Fingers crossed for a touch of “garish nudity” in a future reissue?
Garish is one of my favourite types of it.
Very good, sir. This one sounds pretty interesting, even if I know I’d never make it all the way through it without wondering what that USB thing is. It’d be too distracted by it. I don’t want to space age contraptions with my records, thanks.
I have reason to believe that computers are the future.
What? With all them wires and buttons and the likes? It’ll never catch on!
That’s the one, I saw a programme about them once.
Puns puns puns puns p-p-p-p-punnn-puh-punnnnnn! PUNS!
Puns?
We’re drowning in Dad jokes! I should write a coffee post called Let It ‘Fee
Perfect!
Great boxes, soundly ticked.
Loved the Toop reference*
You are de godfarder of insults.
*I’m 2/3 of the way through Oceans of Sound.
Thank you Bruce. I think I abandoned Oceans of Sound at the 2/3 mark and went and read a whole load of detective novels instead, it was just so much easier on my brain.
I get that. I’ve just paused to read some PG Wodehouse. Aunts aren’t Gentlemen, d’ye ken?
Good choice – I’m very fond of the pig ones he did.
If I put that I like doing those things when I write my auto-biography, would you buy it?
100% !
Excellent!
Yowza! Can’t believe you bought a vinyl in 2013! What a trendsetter… I thought they just started making them in 2014. Mind blown.
I have more titles for hire if anyone’s interested. Just 5 Canadian dollars per word!
Yeah, about that. I have sort of written you out of the whole ‘Let It USB’ title thing – you are now the Pete Best of the blog post title world.
The truth is out there!
Lovely record, and a nice read too. I love the idea of an included USB. And surround sound? You know I’d be all over that.
Rather, I’d “USB” all over that.
Ha! I think I see what you did there.
Thank you. I just picked this up from a blog article – I wish you could see how satisfying the cut-out bit of the cover (where the USB nestles) is when you close it.
I do too, that’s why I’m dropping in unannounced some time later this week.
Love the title, love it, love everything about it. Now to read the article.
Damn you for thinking of this title.
Yup, I take full credit for the title !