The Stordiau Revolution 2024
A Construct Of The Mind
Going for Gothic grandeur, a guardian of enigmatic electronica glimpses light in the gloom.
Perceived wisdom may dictate pitching all things soulful against cerebral matters, and the titles of Alexander Stordiau’s two 2004 EPs, "Skin Of Salt" and “A Construct Of The Mind” which follows it, should suggest such an idea doesn’t seem to alien to him, yet that’s a purely superficial view of what this Bruxellois has been doing for quite a time now. However, with both mini-albums sharing the same spirituality, the latter one sculpts less otherworldly, if equally celestial, solemnity to meld Bach-like fugues and Vangelis-esque airs and create something almost breathtaking. Almost – just because the shifts of tempo within longer compositions allow the listener to respire and carry on exploring the Belgian artist’s universe.
There’s an entire cosmos in this record’s titular epic that fleshes out funereal piano and drum beat with organ passages given an electronic undercurrent before getting rid of the groove in favor of overdriven guitar wail which will produce even more stately nervousness only to dissolve it in loose synthetic strands and then tie all the lines in an imposing panorama – a link to the piece’s beginning. But if “The End Of Courtesy” pretends to provide an escape from this loop, the composition’s waves, attempting to embrace infrasound, in fact, increase the sense of blissful dread until the tune’s dark rapture is revealed amidst the beats for “My Veins Pump Acid” to take the lighter mood further on, towards alluring nebulae, painted in retro-pastel. Still, “Dying Happy In Your Sleep” offers sublime balladry of faux-orchestral scope to send the album off, with a flourish, into indefinite space.
A mind-bending affair, indeed.
*****
