no lullaby - no lullaby

No Lullaby

No Lullaby
ADM; 2013

4.1 out of 5

By Sean Dennison

Nine tracks here on this self-titled album No Lullaby, none of them named. Or rather, they are named after numbers.

I don't even have an introduction for this guy other than he is French, so…

The album consists of electronic compositions; some of them incredibly peaceful, some of them violent and abrasive. "2" pulls out of the Fuck Buttons stops with some machines hell bent on breaking through to the Earth's core while a static buzz increases in volume and frequency. Interpolated are pools of peaceful singing, which serves to make the moments of hellacious noise-rock even more…hellacious.

And that's only the second track. The rest of the album is full of ear-grabbing numbers. "3" wraps itself up in a static cocoon while swathes of synthesizers ornament it from all around. "5" jubilantly channels early Animal Collective as uplifting waves of sound ebb in and out over a toy piano (possibly, it's mad distorted) sample. "7" is fraught with subtle insanity, one of those musical experiments where the chaos slowly grows and grows until you chance back upon the track only to hear what appears to be senseless static…and then bliss, the clouds open and a ray of light filled with manipulated vocal samples, surfy-percussive harmonies and metronomes shines down on the album.

No Lullaby is filled with moments that fuse unlikely elements together. At times the work is throw into outright chaos but always seems to rise from the rubble with excellent ideas. The heavily swirls of ambience in "8," for example, is the sample Blank Dogs never chanced upon. Incredible range, both in execution and idea, No Lullaby has crafted one of the best albums of 2013. Krautrock, electronica, post-rock, ambience and French pop are all apparent here. It is adventurous and empathic, never boring. The last part is the biggest sin musicians can commit, for music should never, ever be boring. And No Lullabies never, ever is.

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