Ahead of their new album, Amateur Radio, the ever-inventive, ever-adventurous Pas Musique offer up a wonderful slice of glitchy and chaotic electronica to smooth the way, if smooth is indeed a suitable word in this context. Ancient Scottish Legend both sits at the cutting edge of avant-garde electronica and casts a glance or two back to the krautrock pioneers of earlier times. Those connections are also strengthened by the fact that the new album features Jeanne-Marie Varian, artist and daughter of Jean-Herve Peron of Faust, collaborating on a cover of It’s a Rainy Day, Sunshine Girl.
But before that album drops, Ancient Scottish Legend offers plenty to get you acclimatised, much for the fan of outsider and alternative sounds to get their metaphorical teeth stuck into. A deep, dark dive into sonic depths, one where intense musical pressures create strange soundscapes comprised of trippy riffs and experimental beats, repetitive rhythms and beguiling noise-pop.
It isn’t for everyone, but it is a good way of working out who you want as friends. If potential musical allies can see the strange beauty and gorgeous chaos inherent in such a song then welcome them with open arms, if not, well, perhaps you might suggest they pick up the latest Ed Sheeran album.
[…] a worthwhile reference. Pas Musique sounds like Pas Musique, so if you liked the previous release, Ancient Scottish Legend, you’ll love this. Not least because it is three seconds […]
[…] Ancient Scottish Legend might sound like a traditional, finger-in-the-ear folk favourite sung by a pipe-smoking, cable-knit sweater-wearing, beardy guy called Brian in the upstairs room of the Murderer’s Arms on folk music night, but it isn’t. It’s a tense and claustrophobic, motorik machination, an eclectic electronic maelstrom, sounding as if the beat itself is some sort of sonic black hole sucking sounds mercilessly into its bowels. Elderly Women on Black ends things, a cycling siren of razor-sharp sounds and pulsing noise. […]