'Post-apocalyptic noir soundtrack jazz. Imagine pop rivets in a willow pattern soup tureen, a New York license plate washed up in the Burmese delta, Charlie Parker as a short order chef in an Alice Springs service station, lizards on a dead farmhand and waiting in line behind a Belgian social worker reading Bukowski.'
Belle Atmos is a London based collective whose industrial cinematic sound is as enervating as it is unnerving.
Their debut EP and DVD capture the tense structures and dark melodies that describe the Lynchian spirit of violent beauty, white noise consciousness and transcendence.
Belle Atmos channel the angry voice of fading celluloid and obsolescent machines, whose crackle and hiss give a sharp form to the background noise of the electronic politic.
Bone shattering polyrhythmic breaks devolve into monotheistic Krautrock to soar above the junkyard of samples chosen with random precision from the 21st century cultural wasteland. Yet within this dystopic vision lies a beauty; strings and orchestral touches take musical queues from the magical architectures of Kraftwerk, Penguin Café Orchestra, David Sylvian, and Debussy. The genius of Belle Atmos isn’t in its juxtaposition of contrasts but in the totality of its audio sculpture.
Integral to the experience of Belle Atmos is Alex May’s ground-breaking synaesethic visuals which riff heavy on themes of elemental industry, human machines, and natural processes.
Sister Ships
Rust