Published by Alessandro Violante on May 14, 2018
Sometime before the mix between techno and industrial music became a trend, French musicians Sandra and Joséphine, alias Cacophoneuses, made their danceable, powerful and strong songs while hidden in the underground. Four years after their first album released by HANDS, entitled The myth of Lorelei, they’ve come back with a more complex album called Chaos theory, closer to rhythmic noise than to 4 / 4 straight techno. The mastering has been made at Prodam studios by Eric Van Wonterghem, one of the most important musicians and producers in the history of industrial music.
While listening to Chaos theory, the listeners feels a constant sense of controlled chaos, thanks to the extreme precision of its distorted rhythms, to its smokey melodies wisely put here and there and, of course, thanks to its noise injections.
Cacophoneuses’ new album sounds more various, cryptical, engaging, less immediate, less stereotyped, if we compare it to their previous releases. Chaos theory is a more mature work, solid and inspired, a 100%-HANDS sounding album. Not something particularly original, but this doesn’t matter too much, when it sounds good.
If Damage control and Take over are the quintessence of very straight techno music, danceable and solied by noise, in Battle with myself, No boundaries and Nemesis the strong common link among techno and rhythmic noise (or distorted beat, as called by someone), is clear and the result is heavy, convincing and enjoyable. This linkage is expressed in different ways according to the song at play. The first one slowly opens to a gloomy, almost cinematographic, synthetic drawing, a prelude to the syncopated rhythm. The second one goes straight to the point, a perfect distorted mixture of elements, here distorted beats wisely break the 4 / 4 tempo. The last one, after a short techno incipit, becomes a deadly, dark syncopated rhythm with rough sounds until its end. It’s the most obscure song of the album, but the best comes with its second half, when things become less claustrophobic.
If it could be said that Sweet bitter successfully repeats the formula of the previous song adding a melodic touch, Blue moon is the real highlight of the album, partly cinematographic, almost ambient, with noise sounds. Progressively, the drum machine appears, intensifying along the song until its end, reaching its climax with a syncopated rhythm. This recalls in some way what has been done by Converter years ago. X marks the spot closes the album with a song pervaded by the melodic element. At first it sounds techno, then, as a perfect outro, the rhythm of the opener comes back for the final assault, but it’s not the end. After some silence, a minimalist rhythmic noise motive appears, a tribute to the masters of the genre.
Chaos theory is about deleting each boundary between two apparently different music genres, cultures, languages. That of techno and that of industrial. Although that’s not new and for years artists have spoken about this through their music, Sandra and Joséphine do it pretty well. Chaos theory is an inspired album, an evolution and a step forward in their career.
Label: HANDS
Rating: 8