Douzième journée: le verbe, la parure, l'amour (Made to Measure, VOL.15)

Description

Crammed's legendary Composers' Series is reactivated in 2021, with new album releases and remastered vinyl reissues of some classics, including 'Made To Measure Vol.15'. "The fascinating sound objects created by the analog synth poet and Tuxedomoon's co-leader. The story is now well-known: the fortuitous meeting between Benjamin Lew and Steven Brown within the cultural melting pot that was early 80s Brussels produced one of those minor, discreet but unforgettable miracles that sometimes occur. In this case: this album. Magical & impenetrable It's clear that Benjamin Lew has a unique talent for creating poetic and evocative atmospheres. He has an inimitable sound, entirely his own, that flirts with the magical. When listening to his albums, his electronic-based music which is unlike any other, one sometimes feels transported to an unknown, non-terrestrial landscape, or to a sci-fi version of an African or Central Asian desert. The title of this album perhaps highlights these magical and impenetrable aspects of Benjamin's sound objects: Douzième journée: le verbe, la parure, l'amour refers to the work of anthropologist Marcel Griaule and his famous (though sometimes now debated) studies on the Dogon people of Mali, whose astonishing cosmogony he attempted to understand and describe during several stays among them in the 1930s. - - The reception of this incomparable album does not seem to have fluctuated much over the decades since its release. Today, as then, comparisons to the music of Jon Hassell, Brian Eno, or Can surface, and it seems difficult to avoid terms such as "surreal," "fascinating," or "dreamlike"... See for example these two excerpts from reviews, published 36 years apart." THE MYTHICAL MADE TO MEASURE COLLECTION... AVANT-GARDE THAT STICKS " --- GONZAI.COM ---." A STUNNING DEBUT ALBUM..." --- PITCHFORK ---." BOTH BRILLIANT AND NAIVE, A BLEND OF MINIMALIST ABSTRACTIONS AND BRASSY EMOTIONS FOR BRIAN ENO-ESQUE SOUNDSCAPES..." --- ROCK& FOLK ---.