ASHINOA – L’Oree (2023, LP Fuzz Club Records)

RELEASE INFO:

Label: Fuzz Club Records

Format: LP, Album, Limited Hand-Numbered Edition, 180gr Ultra-Clear Vinyl, Gatefold Sleeve (includes download code), 600 copies

Release Date: 25 Mar 2023

Ashinoa is a kosmische experimental electro-neo-kraut rock quintet based in Lyon, France, and “L’Orée” is their follow-up album to their debut “Sinie Sinie” (2019, Macadam Mambo), launching a collaboration with London based independent record label, Fuzz Club Records.

Let’s have a look at the band’s informative press release taken from Ashinoa’s Bandcamp page:

“Lyon, France-based five-piece Ashinoa will release their second album ‘L’Orée’ on March 25th via Fuzz Club Records. At times percussive and dancey, at others hypnotic and cinematic, the largely synthesizer-driven soundscapes of ‘L’Orée’ feel both of the past and the future. It’s the sound of two different worlds – a record capable of being as primal and ritualistic as it is synthesized and digitally manipulated. Where the band’s prior minimal Krautrock (see their 2019 ‘Sinie Sinie’ LP) might have brought to mind cold, dark post-industrial cities, ‘L’Orée’s kosmische experimentalism takes you instead on an instrumental journey through the natural wilderness via the medium of shape-shifting psychedelic electronics.

That ‘L’Orée’ explores a more natural and organic sound than heard on their previous releases owes largely to the environment it was made in. Recorded in a tucked-away house in the French countryside that bordered on a surrounding forest, Ashinoa recalls sessions spent soaking up their surroundings with a number of collaborators coming in and out to perform on the record: “The house we recorded the album in was kind of in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by douglas pine trees. From this proximity to the forest, we wanted to take our soundscapes to a place we’ve never been before. Before we were surrounded by concrete, and then far from it. We were looking for a new listening place, to discover new intriguing sounds. We had laid down the basis of the album and then musician friends that would visit us at the time were invited to participate in the making of the album, each one of them bringing a touch of their own.”

Since forming in 2015, the French five-piece comprised of Chris Poincelot, Matteo Fabbri, Jérémy Labarre, Paul Renard, and Ghazi Frini have been at the forefront of the alternative scene in their home city of Lyon. Initially associated with the city’s Misère Records movement and collective, the band have now signed to London-based label Fuzz Club Records (Night Beats, Tess Parks, The Underground Youth) for their latest. It follows the band’s debut ‘Sinie Sinie’ LP and a vinyl-only release of the ‘Koalibi’ single as part of Fuzz Club’s Reverb Conspiracy compilation series. Having toured around France on a number of occasions Ashinoa have also through the years shared stages with the likes of Metz, Flamingods, Tomaga, Warmduscher, Bo Ningen, Kikagaku Moyo, Minami Deutsch, The Holydrug Couple, and many more”…

“L’Orée” contains 12 tracks, 6 on each side of the LP album, and it kicks off in a creepy dark breath-taking cold industrialized way with “Vermillion”, slowly the Synths are taking a Krauty lead, opening the doors for a colorful universe while the band tries to explore it with a kind of an earthly electronic-psych approach, pure organic sounds are blending with electro ones creating an adventurous but torturously slow kosmische soundscape. “Koalibi” has a rather cool experimental krauty edge while weird electro sounds are mixed with dark Dub sonic ones, the whole thing here acts like a lost interlude from 1994’s LP “Music For The Jilted Generation”, wow! “Feu De Joie” is built upon an electronically flavored Dub-beat with lots of improvisation, showing another side of the band, more calmy and kind of organically trippy… “Space Cow” and “Falling Forever” are short electro-sampled futuristic interludes while side ‘A’ closes with “Fuel Of Sweet”, a track that dives deeper into darkness under a cold electro-organic environment… The opener of side ‘B’ is called “Unknown To Myself”, there’s an ambient and kind of abstract approach to this piece of dark post-kraut, emerging a strong cinematic feel… “Selvatica” is a Dubb-y Echo-ed amalgam of wied electro-organic sounds with an experimental acid jazz approach. “Bade BaidebZs” is a futuristic theme with lots of “voice samples”, an electronic, mystical, and experimental (of course!) Cosmic-Dub anthem while “Disguised In Orbit” is a cool adventurous electro-krauty space-dub anthem reminding me the ones that legendary FSOL used to build back in the 90s… With “Yzmenet”, Ashinoa returns to the dark cold, and creepy electronic industrialized “trademark” sounsdcapes, experimental and kind of “isolated” but in a more “grounded” way… The album eventually comes to an end with a short dark weird studio experiment, simply entitled “Outro”… So, Ashinoa delivered to the world an Organic-Electro-Krauty “difficult” album, Kraut-inspired but with a very personal and alternative aesthetic, and all you “seekers-of-the-different” out there, I’m pretty sure that you will not be disappointed! TimeLord Michalis 

Tracklist

Links

Listen / Buy through ASHINOA Bandcamp

Visit ASHINOA Facebook

Get it via Fuzz Club Records