VL_Stay
Label: 12th Isle
Genre: Electronic, Highlights
$36.99
Out of stock
Audiopile Review: 12th Isle round out their quiet 2024 with a new LP from the long-running Fan Club Orchestra, a Belgian unit active for the past quarter century, issuing albums for the Mouse On Mars associated Sonig, among others. While earlier outings could be chaotic affairs of DIY-informed IDM or improvisatory chip-tune glitch, the trio have smoothed out their previous modes for a deeper gaze into the outer reaches of kosmiche. As is generally expected with a 12th Isle release, VL_Stay is a subdued affair, crossing the streams of warped 4th world jazz and spacey ambient overtures, though they’ve brought their own elements of glitched and playful electronics to the flighty excursion. With a steady outpour of Namlook-ian synth signals and gaseous puffs of ambience, the trio puncture the glacial overcast with smeared echoes of trumpet, obscured melodies and their trademarked glitch sounds, though slowed to a brain-tingling hum of clicks and pops. A nice lateral move for FCO and another deep-listening gem from the 12th Isle crew.
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Fan Club Orchestra (FCO) has its roots in collaborative performances and recordings that began taking place in the late nineties in Brussels. These continued into the second decade of the new millennium around Belgium and neighbouring countries. At a time when large contemporary arts spaces were less professionalised, less obedient to funding and attendance numbers, and still attuned to their founding DIY impulses, FCO were able to nurture their nebulous cast of players with their unconventional ensemble of instruments to their own ends. The apparent informality of their performances, mixed with the sheer spectacle of their unfolding, transplanted the experimentalism of New York’s downtown scene of the 1960s into the cracked consumer electronics period of new media art at the turn of the century. A newly regrouped FCO now present their album ‘VL_Stay’ on 12th Isle. This iteration of FCO sees Baudoux joined by Ann Appermans on guitar and bass, and Zéphyr Zijlstra on trumpet. Appermans is an original FCO member as well as a frequent collaborator with Baudoux. Zijlstra is a jazz student at the Royal Conservatoire of Brussels. Recorded in just two weeks, the trio invoke the pedigree with which FCO first toyed, while sketching a continuity with new references.