I’ve been following the way of Gabriel Hernandez a.k.a. GoGooo for quite a while. He runs one of the most beautiful, most interesting Netlabels (check Rain Music) and released his own music on various small compilations and EPs at Rain Music, Mandorla and 1.8 Seconds. He’s active under the name of Simagrée (alongside Albert Fadi), cooperated with Daisuke Miyatani (‘Miyagooo’) and forms the duo SOL III with Alain Basso. Due to that, Gabriel seems to have a strong interest in post-naïve paintings and releases his own photocopy comics at JETS Editions. A man of taste, no doubt. What about his new EP at EKO?
Taking his former albums in account, one might get the impression that the GoGooo-sound at Nuages has changed. Well, let’s say it moved. Neither it is as dense as La forêt aux petites filles (Mandorla), nor it’s as eclectic as Cat Songs (Rain Music). If you want to categorize his music as electroacoustic, it might be comprehensible to find the ‘electro’-elements being set back a little while the ‘acoustic’ parts get some more space. This finding goes along with the fact that Gabriel strongly focuses on glockenspiel- and kalimba-sounds. The opening track Un Arbre is a composition for delay and singing bowls. Clusters of complex sine waves come up and stick in the back of the track like whirring air above the woods on a hot summer day, looped and lost. Where Un Arbre examines the ‘key stroke’ of sound, Vent at position two highlights the decay. Slowly departing, single chime tones mix-up in the reverb. Gabriel applies very decent electronic treatment to the main source, altering the dynamics of single events or adding shy noises here and there. Like wind in the willows.
Track number three is called Petites Choses and introduces a sweet guitar-motive. First time Gabriel closes ranks to his older, more ‘musical’ works. Makes me think of the Chill Out-album by British Pop-theorists The KLF. Is that a good comparison? I think so. Fusing the analytical element of Vent with expanded field-recordings, Dormir (Forêt) sounds exactly like this: asleep in the woods. Hypnotic! There is a strong moment of late-summer lethargy innit, like sitting beneath an old tree tracking the last whirligig beetles in the air… hm. The walk through a field of flowers at at Fleurs makes you come back to live. GoGooo transforms tones to tonality and creates a Marsen Jules-like soundscape with a rather optimistic scent. You can smell the fields nearlly! Final tune Des Arbres is the corresponding outro to Un Arbre and sounds quite similar. Warning: you’ve left the countryside.
Awaiting something different, I found myself disappointed when listening to Nuages the first time. Maybe you have to pay a bit more attention to this GoGooo-record than his former releases. Maybe you have to scratch a bit harder at the surface of his sparse and accidental compositions to get hooked. Maybe Con-v would have been a better Netlabel for Nuages. But after all, Gabriel Hernandez created a wonderful EP full of experimental, warm electronic music you barely can find anywhere else (including ‘commercial’ releases). Just give it a second try!
Get the record here: Nuages
Direct download: Get the zip-file!
