IMPERFECT SILENCE

ENIGMATIC SOUND MACHINES is the Montreal based duo of Jeremie Arrobas and Thomas Szirmay. Jeremie was a founding member of MEN WITHOUT HATS but has been active since then in Electronics, visual arts and much more. A very creative and artistic guy. Thomas of course is a long time reviewer on the site here and he's a very successful and educated person in the real world. The man is fluent in many languages, and all you need to do is read his reviews to feel the enthusiasm he has for our music. He has a way with words doesn't he.

I first saw Szirmay's association with this band just recently and on another site. I was confused to be honest because I knew he wasn't a musician, so it didn't make sense. Well, both he and Jeremie use sound machines whatever they are. Maybe just turning them on and twirling a dial(lol). Regardless, these old friends from their private school days in Quebec have created something special here. I want to mention too that Thomas told me about Jeremie years ago, as well as being friends at this private school with another French musician who would go on to be the singer for the great band called THE BOX. Heady times.

Knowing Thomas I figured the music here would be in the crossover/neo/symphonic area code with lots of energy and humour. Nope! Szirmay's favourite band was always ROXY MUSIC, but this album is far from any of the music I just mentioned. This is uniform sounding and melancholic. Tripping along at mid-pace or slower. Psychedelic based with plenty of synths. There's vocals on every track except the opener and closer. Just under 55 minutes. Nice to see guests like GONG's Hansford Rowe playing bass on the opener. And guitarist Alain Bellaiche from HELDON and Richard Pinhas solo on three tracks. But the guest that really adds the most is Rob Harrison on sax and flute.

When it comes to duos I couldn't help but think of that EDISON'S CHILDREN's debut along with that album Bruce Soord and jonas Renske did together. There are connections between these three records even though they are also quite different from one another. Fake beats, mellotron and more are things that are similar. All have an 80's vibe with Soord's record being the most like that. Tough to pick a favourite song which is a good thing. A very consistent record. The "Hallow, hallow, hallow" singing on "Hallow" Is catchy and memorable. Synth bass to start I believe in plenty of atmosphere. Sax will replace the vocals around 4 minutes in. This theme is common on this record. Maybe the brightest piece(it's not bright) is "Haunted" which is ironic given the title. The vocals style on the chorus brings Steven Wilson to mind.

My favourite though might be the closing instrumental. It's the longest piece at 10 minutes and it's actually dark at one point. The opener starts out so beautiful with those spacey sounds, and ends that way too. We get flute on the trippy "The Distance Between Here And Now". That sure sounds like slide guitar on "Wrapped In Black" before 6 minutes. This is a solid 4 star album in my world. I'm really impressed with this album. Love at first spin.

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