Mosaique - Shattering Silence [Cronica - 2010]I think in order to be taken seriously you have to make an effort. If you send a CDr promo in with the title scribbled on it in barely legible handwriting and wrap it in a colour print of the cover you’re putting yourself at a huge disadvantage to start with. If you have some pride in what you are producing and want others to realise that then show it. The cheapness of music technology and the ability to reach into millions of homes with the advent of the internet has made it so easy for albums to be recorded and released that you have to stand out and marketing arm of Cronica needs a swtft kick up the arse if they want themselves to be taken seriously. That aside what are the contents like? Well, being a data CDr it wouldn’t play on any stereo I tried it on but seemed to be happy to be played on a PC. Mosaique is Jan Ferreiras a Portuguese musician and on this album he is exploring areas new to him. To quote his own words….. “In this release I worked for the first time with analogue synthesis. It was new territory so I spent long time exploring timbres and textures and what especially drew my attention was the "sharpness" of sound as if one could sense its outlines like with forms and shapes.” I’d like to know more about what he means by analogue synthesis as most of this actually sounds very digital to me. A great proportion of the sounds lack the warmth I would associate with analogue synthesisers or vst versions of analogue equipment.
That’s not to say I don’t find the 100 or so minutes this album runs for very enjoyable. Possibly just over half of it reminds me very much of Farmers Market (who had a few releases on the Mego label, don’t know if they are still around or not?) with perhaps Oval and COH as other influences. There’s plenty of glitch crackly randomness and on the few tracks where the analogue basis of it is more obvious it sounds like it’s come from the school of old style industrial. The tracks that sound more digital and crackle and pop like tomorrow are actually the most successful. One piece that combines the two “Tessian” has the most horrible combination of two oscillators that are slightly out of tune with each other (on purpose) that spoils the remaining sounds that would have benefited from not having the two flies stuck in a jam jar sound accompanying it.
Whilst there’s a lot wrong in terms of presentation, there’s not much wrong in terms of the pieces themselves. They’re accomplished enough to rise above the mountain of similar style releases that seem to come out on a daily basis these days and are certainly worth your while exploring. You can actually download the album for free from the labels website cronicaelectronica.org.    David Bourgoin
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