Murmuüre “s/t” CD

I've been running pretty far behind for a couple of months now, so I'm still sitting on a few intriguing releases from the excellent Paradigms Recordings label. This self-titled outing from peculiar French act Murmuüre (which is unfortunately said to be both the first and last release from the project) was originally issued on cassette, but Paradigms re-released it on CD in a limited run of 500 copies. The band's sound seems to be generally linked to black metal (or "celestial black pop", as the label puts it), but the six tracks/30 minutes of material herein have been digitally manipulated to the point of almost coming across more like experimental noise to me. Apparently all of the compositions are based around a one-hour guitar improvisation that was recorded in late-2006 and later re-contextualized with an assortment of additional sound sources (including live/programmed drums and vocals); and while there are discernible bits and pieces of vocals, percussion, and "riffs" scattered throughout; the bulk of the release is driven by a lot of really chilled out, ethereal drones and ambient atmospherics that—even in the presence of fuzzy distortion and percussion—retain an odd sense of melody and emotion that just doesn't say "black metal" to me at all. (The barely audible vocals do seem rather intense, but they're so subdued in the mix that they blend into the pieces as additional texture more than anything.) And that's not a bad thing. Quite the opposite in fact. I must confess that my initial reaction to the release was somewhat lukewarm, but I've quickly grown very fond of it, and the surprising sense of feeling that the music carries with it would achieve striking results were it used to score an appropriate film. Stream the complete release below (via Bandcamp):

And, as always, be sure to honor the artist/label with a purchase if you enjoy what you hear...

Get It

Paradigms Recordings (CD)
Bandcamp (mp3)