Stendeck – Carnage (Album – Hymen Records)
Genre/Influences: IDM, Cinematographic, Electro-Ambient.
Format: Digital, CD, Double 12” Vinyl.
Background/Info: After a hiatus of six years,
Alessandro Zampieri aka Stendeck strikes back with the sixth official album of his music project. After having released albums on Geska Records and Tympanik Audio, “Carnage” is the first work released by Hymen Records. The album features vocals by Kristi Lyn Scaccia and the voices of Les Voix Obscures Choir. The album seems to be inspired by fake news.
Content: Stendeck remains mainly driven by the sound of IDM; an intelligent Electronic creation driven by broken rhythms, evasive atmospheres and sensual female vocals. Some passages are more into mystic moods while other cuts are pure cinematographic music. This album is without a shadow of a doubt the most versatile work of the artist.
+ + + : Stendeck holds on to its good-old influences, remaining impacted by IDM, but this work is also much more cinematographic than ever before. I however prefer the IDM cuts, which also have something pretty sensual –especially when driven by a slow tempo and the sexy timbre of the voice of Kristi Lyn Scaccia. There are numerous great songs featured on this album, but “New Dark Age” and “Eyeless Creatures Gently Stifle The Ivy Lady” both definitely are outstanding (quite curiously these tracks are instrumental edits).
– – – : I expected a bit more out of the song featuring Les Voix Obscures Choir.
Conclusion: It’s good to see Stendeck releasing a new, visionary album, which clearly stands for the most creative and intelligent side of Electro-Underground music.
Best songs: “New Dark Age”, “Eyeless Creatures Gently Stifle The Ivy Lady”, “Red Neon”, “Queen Of Beauty Tragic Obsession”, “Thirteen Wolves Mass Conspiracy”.
Rate: 8½.
Artist: www.stendeck.com / www.facebook.com/stendeckmusic
Label: www.hymen-records.com / www.facebook.com/hymenrecords Read the news on ‘Carnage’.
About Stendeck
Stendeck is the solo project of Alessandro Zampieri, an artist based in Lugano, Switzerland. Zampieri is a classically trained pianist and formed the project in 1999 as his interest in electronic music grew.
He made a first demo album, “A crash into another world”, in 2002. The album “Can you hear my call” followed on Geska Records in 2005, in a mastering by Mike Wells of Gridlock. “Faces” appeared on the same label in 2007, after which Stendeck moved to Tympanik Audio for “Sonnambula” in 2009, “Scintilla” in 2011 and “Folgor” in 2015. The project then went quiet for six years.
“Carnage”, the album reviewed here, is the sixth Stendeck album and the first for Hymen Records. It was issued on CD and as a double 12-inch vinyl limited to 200 copies.
Support Side-Line
More people read Side-Line than ever, and there is still no paywall and no advertising. Readers pay for it instead - from $5 a month.
Why we ask
Advertising revenues across the media are falling fast. Unlike many news organisations we have not put up a paywall, and we refuse to add annoying advertising, so we need to ask for your help. Side-Line’s independent journalism takes time, money and hard work to produce, and we do it to push the artists we like, who are equally fighting to survive.
Handled by PayPal.
I have been working for over 30 years with Side-line as the main reviewer. My taste is eclectic, uncoventional and I prefer to look for the pearls, even if the bands are completely unknown, thus staying loyal to the Side-Line philosophy of nurturing new talents.
