Album Artwork (fragment)
Minais B, a.k.a Villads Klint of Khalil, broadcasts some intimate steel & glass elegance in his new release for the newly founded Petrola 80 label. [social_warfare]
Copenhagen seems to be the cradle of innovative electronic music, which reflects in one way or another the sensibilities of our modern lives and the pervasive emotions of our generation. Croatian Amor’s Love Means Taking Action was one of the most prominent celebrations of these contemporary notions of beauty and anxieties. Minais B comes from a related sphere - Villads Klint, the person behind this moniker, is also part of the experimental pop trio Khalil who have just released a brilliant LP on Posh Isolation. Petrola 80 is a new Copenhagen-based label operated by Jens Konrad of the now defunct Blodrøde Floder label as well as the Sansernes Rus and Lyra projects, and Hjalte, also of Lyra. All these connections prove how closely related and tight-knit the Danish scene is and how deep the sense of community is there.This new Minais B release somehow slid under the press radar despite being one of the gems of the already fruitful 2017. Deep Care, released on Anyines, was an interesting exercise in sensual post-internet electronics. As the River at its Source goes further towards the personal. The release consists of a single 16 minute track, where a spoken word passage is accompanied by swashes of mesmerizing soundscapes standing somewhere inbetween the more melancholic moments of Helm’s recent output and musique concrète, and it feels transparent as glass. The record is at once challenging and light, warm and uneasy, but this boundary between depersonalized nature and something very intimate and close is where its beauty lies. Part of it comes from the peculiar resonance between the sound and the lyrics. The latter is a sincere account, narrated in a cold yet soft female voice, giving a feel of sustained dramaticism - like a stranger’s tale that hits close to home. There is an elegance to this release, but not in the classical sense, rather it is more akin to the experiences of our troubled generation and its aesthetic perceptions. These sounds create a tense and strange emotional field. It reminds watching a short atmospheric movie, where a personal narrative is illustrated by surreal footage of vast cityscapes.
As the River at its Source is an exciting hint. It will be really interesting to observe the following artistic twists and turns of Villads and Petrola 80. It further shows the unpredictable nature of the Danish scene, and its compelling sense of the zeitgeist of our generation.
