Franz Kirmann – or François as he’s known to his mum – has been a busy man in recent years, releasing a slew of EPs, producing a bunch of releases by other artists and running a record label too. Musically, he’s pretty diverse in his pursuits, too, and ‘Random Access Memories’ is essentially a collage work. But don’t be misled by his eclecticism or the title: far from being thrown together, it’s a carefully constructed piece that weaves a rich sonic tapestry as it shifts effortlessly between textures and moods.
Although informed by cinematic ambient forms, percussion pins the sweeping waves of sound together. On ‘Liza’, crisp, natural drums with spacious reverb come to dominate in places amidst a shifting tide of sound that moves from Cure-esque dream pop to post-rock atmospherics.
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Spacious yet juddering wide-angle soundscapes are shaken and riven with shivering shards of electronic incidentals while delicate instrumental passages swell unexpectedly with surges of undifferentiated noise.
While it’s clearly a very personal response to the material, ‘Random Access Memories’ is both evocative and accomplished, and as such succeeds in eliciting a very definite response in the listener that’s cerebral as well as emotional.
Franz Kirmann Online
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