Les Nymphes

Hazy dream chronicles. A Martin Rev album is always liable to spring a surprise. Think of the rough guitars which unexpectedly appeared on his 2003 release "To Live" instead of synthesizers. "Les Nymphes", which followed in 2008, saw Rev return to dream-laden melodic miniatures, but came from a resolutely more radical place than its predecessors. A minimalist thread runs through Martin Rev‘s oeuvre, and yet there is an opulence, something approaching exuberance, to the pieces on "Les Nymphes". The first few seconds of the opening track "Sophie Eagle" herald a towering sonic wave, a cascade of echoes and rhythm loops, with fragments of melody and Rev’s sporadic utterances rising like whitecaps above splashing phase shifts. References to contemporary club music, in evidence on "To Live", resurface here, along with the disconcerting guitar samples which dominated the previous album. The other tracks on "Les Nymphes" share a subcooled, dreamlike, slow rave sensibility amidst a post-industrial atmosphere which is eminiscent of Coil in the scope of its three-dimensional soundscape.Rev elaborates: «The similarities of "Les Nymphes" to house and dance were evident for sure, although I didn’t start off searching for them in particular.. It was probably the first work I brought to completion from start to finish on computer, and a lot of the tracks were digitally derived from interactive programs rather than outboard gear. The atmosphere and sound were inspired by a lot of reading I had been doing in Greek mythology and also investigating the same stories in different languages. Probably my spending a lot of time living in Montreal for several years was a strong influence in that it’s a French speaking environment and all the book stores had a great array of classical literature in French and other languages.» The inspiration of cultural mythologies is what makes "Les Nymphes" so irresistible, its hazy realities assembled in a dream chronology. What would an ethereal house or techno album sound under Rev’s guidance? Once again, this work demonstrates the rigour of Martin Rev’s approach, his willingness to embrace risk and his uncompromising rejection of a single aesthetic framework. "Les Nymphes" is, without question, the work of an artist who is constantly in search mode. - Daniel Jahn, February 2022