L'eclipse Nue - Negative

L’eclipse Nue - Negative
Dorei Recordings. DOR 021CD



It’s not a good start is it? The cover art I mean. If you were out for a browse on a Saturday morning and you picked up ‘Negative’ by L’Eclipse Nue would you buy it or would you think ‘what the fuck is that’? For a moment I thought we were back in Venusian Death Cell territory, that mysterious one man Irish death metal band whose covers depict Satanic rituals drawn in a childish scrawl on lined note paper. But no, this is Daniel Sine, a one man band ‘industrial, experimental, noise’ unit based in Tokyo and it was his friend who painted the cover. A picture that portrays a nude model, a woman who sat nude for artists before ‘offering herself’ up to them and now she’s back as a ghost with a mission and now you know as much as me.

So far so bad. But let us not get bogged down in the sodding cover art or we’ll be here all night. This has been with me a while now. I played it upon arrival which is my usual modus operandi and thought my usual thoughts when faced with an industrial, experimental, noise album of this nature. That being that the we could be in for a rocky ride. For while L’eclipse Nue and Sine may cal this industrial, experimental, noise I’d say it has more in common with Power Electronics with very little in the way of experimenting going on. And as enee fule no Power Electronics straddles a thin line between parody and tediousness. When its good theres nothing else like it, when its bad its awful. There are those who manage to stay on that line forging artistic careers that gain respect with the passing years and then there are those who make middling PE/Noise albums and I’m classing this as one of them. That's not to say that a middling PE/Noise album cant have instances of greatness within itself, its just that sometimes you think maybe the quality control button came off in his hand.

As if the cover art wasn’t enough of a distraction there’s the track titles to contend with; ‘Prying Open the Manhole Cover to the Tunnel of God’, ‘Transitioning Into the Next Dimension’, ‘Facing the Gaping Jaws of Infinity’ and my favourite ‘Dial Emergency’. But still I listened and somewhere among the blasted dystopian landscapes I found moments that I genuinely liked. There’s plenty of that deep low end rumble going on, the distant roar of a radioactive dust storm stripping the barren earth of its last vestiges of useful minerals as seen in a sci-fi film starring Matt Damon. Then there’s tracks like ‘A Promise In Hell’ which is ten minutes of that rumble with Beelzebub in the background no doubt muttering dark somethings. Which is followed by a hideous squeal with leaden low end synth key throb and a strangled, ethereal female vocal [‘Revenge Of A Dead Model’].

Things start off so well though with ‘Humiliation On Film’ going for that full on cathartic roar with a menacing disembodied voice telling you to ‘turn around’. Third track ‘Poisoned by the Yellow Spines of a Hundred Greedy Slugs’ [my second favourite title] reminded me of Italian PE outfit Iugula Thor with a rattling wasp like synth lead and equally disaffected vocals. At two minutes its noisy perfection. Put it on a single with a decent cover and god’s your manhole cover.

Sine has worked with Toshiji Mikawa, Hiroshi Hasegawa [amongst others] and gigs regularly in Tokyo. Maybe he should ask Mikawa san to do the next cover.

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