My search for ‘noisy’ music continues, and again I’m getting closer with Rio Noir, although actually they’ve got slightly more in common with the Finnish minimalist / poetic release from AnnaKristiina which I featured on Wednesday.
Similarly to yesterday’s featured Electric Sweetheart they’re from Stockholm, and they regard themselves as a ‘collective artistic project’ more than an actual rock band, preferring to explore the creatively rich territories of poetry, film and electro acoustic music. Behind the whole thing is the artist Victor Moreno, who probably isn’t a familiar name to you all but has been involved in a number of projects, including the composition of music to a chapbook of poems entitled ‘An Abrupt Solidity To The Light’, which sounds like the type of thing that one day I aspire to vaguely understand.
Anyhow, under the Rio Noir project name they’ve only released a couple of tracks, the latest being ‘Life Within Pt 1‘ and it’s part of an EP that’s due for release in May, which I’m going to make a wild guess also includes a track entitled ‘Life Within Part 2’.
Somewhere between Post Punk and Krautrock, ‘Life Within Part 1’ careers forward with just such a blast of rhythmic intensity, it feels like I’m almost ‘locked in’ whilst listening to it. I’m sure there’s some Nordic comparisons, but I’m guessing that you’ll particularly enjoy this if you like bands such as Fufanu.
Given the ‘poetic’ influences of the band, I admit I’d like to hear all of the lyrics more clearly, they’re slightly lost amongst the swirling electronica and drumbeats. But musically this is powerful, potent and forceful music that really makes its point, emphasised by the fact that it’s 7 minutes long.
Incidentally they say the track is “inspired by Native American culture and a celebration of being in harmony with your surroundings”, and almost all instruments were performed by Victor Moreno, but special mention to the marvellous sounding drumming courtesy of Zakarias Knigge, and it was mixed by Jonas Verwijnen and Janne Lounatvuori at Kaiku Studios in Berlin.
Very impressive track and look forward to the EP.
They can be found on Instagram.