Label: Mana

ジャワのガムランとミニマリズムを融合させた非常に洗練されたスタイルで極上の反復を紡ぐプロジェクトDe Leon。前作から5年振りとなる2nd LPが英レーベルManaよりリリース。プリミティブな音色をアカデミックな構造で仕上げた非常に面白い動きをするリズム集となっており、エレクトロニクスの導入も程良い硬さとなって効いている全7曲。Daniel Schmidtの恍惚な響き、創作楽器的音色の面白さ、人力反復など、まさに魅力的な要素だけで構築されています。素朴なジャケットデザインも良い。









De Leon returns to Mana, following their 2018 LP, offering a suite of new material that adds further waypoints to the map of their cryptic soundworld, deepening and expanding the direction of travel they began within the Aught collective.

The dual legacies of Javanese gamelan and minimalist composition remain clear touchstones on this second, untitled album, which employs architectures of repetition and microtonality and evokes the musical heritage of the Bay Area whilst folding in the arid landscapes of Tucson, Arizona, where its compositions were conceived in part.

Featuring a broad vocabulary of source material, notably Daniel Schmidt’s gamelan at Mills College and the spherical gongs on the album’s cover, combined with a homespun collection of prepared instruments and faint vapours of synthesis, De Leon crafts a distinct signature sound that evades alignment with conventions of academic composition and contemporary electronica but nods to both as it carves out its unique direction of travel.

This album inscribes itself into a tradition of works that enable listeners to perceive deeper valences of time and psychedelic aesthetics of scale. Percussion and metallophones fluctuate within the virtual space of the recording and the sounds avoid stasis, rather undulating restlessly or flickering in and out of perception in a manner consistent with the mercurial sensibilities of their early De Leon recordings.