Élan Vital – Shadow Self (CD Album – Fishrider Records/Occultation)

Genre/Influences: Minimal-electro, electro-wave, experimental.

Background/Info: Hailing from New Zealand we welcome the debut work from Élan Vital-trio. The work has been released on Fishrider Records (New Zealand) together with Occultation (UK).

Content: I don’t know if it’s because of the distance and simply the fact that we’re not used to hear underground electronic bands from New Zealand, but Élan Vital clearly reveals a different approach in sound. There’s a real strong vintage flavor supporting the songs, which is mixing 60s organ sounds together with 80s-like rhythm boxes plus robotic vocals. The songs are into electro-wave, mixing elements of pop together with tougher industrial arrangements.

+ + + : Vintage electronics is not exactly ‘new’, but the refreshing elements here consist about the mix of different retro-styles. The organ makes it sound a bit psychedelic while the good-old rhythm box clearly evokes the 80s electro-wave movement. It all together sounds pretty refreshing and there are a few cool cuts featured on “Shadow Self”. This formation takes me by surprise reworking and mixing ‘old’ music styles.

– – – : I can easily imagine some music lovers who’ll not find this kind of production that refreshing at all. I guess a lot of experiments have already been done in numerous music styles. The main difficulty for Élan Vital will however be to get some fair distribution to catch a wider audience.

Conclusion: “Shadow Self” is the perfect sonic illustration that bringing old music genres from different periods together can be simply original and efficient!

Best songs: “Possession”, “Hologram”, “Janina”.

Rate: (7).

Band: www .facebook .com /elanvitalmusicband

Label: www .fishriderrecords .com / www .occultation .co .uk / www .facebook .com /fishriderrecords / www .facebook .com /OccultationRecordings

Since you’re here …

… we have a small favour to ask. More people are reading Side-Line Magazine than ever but advertising revenues across the media are falling fast. And unlike many news organisations, we haven’t put up a paywall – we want to keep our journalism as open as we can. So you can see why we need to ask for your help.

Side-Line’s independent journalism takes a lot of time, money and hard work to produce. But we do it because we want to push the artists we like and who are equally fighting to survive.

If everyone who reads our reporting, who likes it, helps fund it, our future would be much more secure. For as little as 5 US$, you can support Side-Line Magazine – and it only takes a minute. Thank you.

The donations are safely powered by Paypal.