S/T LP out on NAHAL RECORDINGS ; Vinyl and digital release
A CLOSER LISTEN (USA) : "Gears shift, explosives detonate and the apocalypse seems high." NÉOPRISME (FR) : "Cette flamme qui hypnotise dès qu’on la regarde trop longtemps, de même que captive cette musique drone, ambiant, faites de boucles et de larsens, qui sonne comme un monde sur le point de se retrouver calciné par les feux qu’il aura lui-même lancés. Advienne que pourra." THE NOIRGAZER (TR) : "an unique approach to music-making, which alternates between a romantic and brutal aesthetic." NEW NOISE (FR) : "L'auditeur est balancé au coeur de la machine, libre à lui de la dompter." MUZZART (FR) : "Il est spatial, fuse et plane, fait du bruit et laisse des ornières. Uzhur n’est pas pur mais une chose est sûre; son opus, intransigeant, instigue une expérience unique."
PR: morganedecapele@gmail.com LABEL: nahalrecordings@gmail.com
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UZHUR 2023
MUSIC VIDEOS
Phases of a journey beyond space-time, the six tracks of UZHUR's first eponymous album, summon as many post-apocalyptic visions as there are brains to imagine them. In a stream of total improvisation, everything that emanates from the sessions recorded by this mysterious duo feeds eminently organic matter, while giving voice to machines – and it touches a little more closely what makes us human. Sound engineers and musicians Jean-Charles Bastion and Fabien Rios are used to composing for pictures; here they have fun defining the contours. Upon listening to the album, you might find yourself thinking of the greasy doom metal of Khanate (XULON) where the unrestrained blows of drummer Arnaud Rhuth (Le Réveil Des Tropiques, One Second Riot) vituperate, the electric tensions of Ben Frost in the gushing of the modular synthesizer of artist/producer Mondkopf (GENUS), or the Power Electronics of Whitehouse or Greymachine in the discharges and the rumblings, mixed with a very particular grace, a poetry which takes its time to navigate the extreme and evoke moments of cinema. Then, amidst strange vocoder mantras, hissings and interferences, through the wire of settings and textures which interlock and startle, one might let himself be immersed in their film, and in a certain idea of disaster which extends its shock wave into the crevices of the spaces we live in.
Uzhur (pronounced Oujour) is a city of about fifteen thousand inhabitants located in the Krasnoyarsk Kraï in southern Russia. On the rare pictures available, one discovers samples of semi-deserted streets where pastel colored modern churches look like pastry decorations. On the edges of the roads, unkept clumps of dry grass let out a solitude that gives to the gusts of wind all the space to take the lead. All above the uneven set of roofs, electric cables are connected by wavering wooden poles. Local folklore stories speak of magical lands, crushed meteorites, a military base and nuclear launchers... This city, which has remained secret for a long time, like its faceless postcards, may be the starting point of this record, but it has also been written without any other anchor point than mental landscapes, indescribable deliriums, too intimate to be translated literally. More than a “musique savante”, UZHUR builds a “musique voyante”, disseminating innovative dialogues and a contemporary language which alternates between a romantic and romanticized view of the environment, and pieces centered on disturbing brutality. Mixed with bass guitar, feedbacks, amplified synthesizers and rhythmics with no tempo, a robotic voice punctuates the sound waves with truncated sentences. Deep in the folds of this black tale, one could recognize familiar elements: the engine of a racing car, alarm of an air raid, the squeal of a pair of tires on a racetrack wet by the rain. And then, in a more abstract way, the slow rise of a psychotropic drug, or a crowd getting closer, gradually uniting in a party that defies the call of dawn. In this music of trial and error, crumbling and delicate, violence is reshuffled to extract its most concentrated juice.
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