My Review: Ohne Nomen - The S-Witch

Ohne Nomen - The S-Witch

There are vessels of liquid penumbras in thoughts, a slow wasp in search of guidance. Love, the pulsating one of uncontrollable spasms, seeks a force in the time of delirium, and it can be said that in art, specifically that of music, we can find an oblique flash, composed of a strategic plan that knows well how to involve the body in contact with the desire to sow tracks of silver dust, on which to run the conviction that it is the only correct thing to do.

Now at their second disc, the Italian pair has invested in a sound plot that appears to be a concept album, which in reality it is not, demonstrating rather the need to limit the field of possibilities in order to converge in a mantle on which to slide restlessness, hallucinations, symbolism, ending up gravitating around musical genres that are surrounded by their power: a work as an execution, as a transplant of sound waves to be introduced into the brain.

A journey that encompasses absences (from fear, to obscene vulgarity), contemplating instead the need to channel the destruction of the world as an oceanic, temporal tale, like diamonds fading in the sludge of everyday life. They are fierce shivers, one senses on their part the intention to make of essentiality a fist that, through melody, dance, knows how to prick the heart of existence, granting grace and warmth that through synths is not so much romantic as a vehicle of obsession. The tracks demonstrate the high capacity of the two to agree on strategies that can be cobwebs full of black honey, an agnostic mass in the sin of uncontrollable degradation. Fra and Philippe Marlat create a world of chasms for which it is easy to attract the senses, the embryonic macrocosms, to pay tribute to a highly emotive catchiness.

Pain becomes an opportunity to generate projects, with sinful and daring impulses, as the dress of a sphere involving feelings, instincts, like a magic with sharp nails. The rhythms are the terminals of melodic games full of a radioactive propensity for brevity to be repeated in dry riffs, with synths dominating, like allies of seeds from the 1980s.

Fra's voice is a silk glove soaked in oil: it makes the heart glisten, makes the mind clench, delivering a pleasantly toxic addiction. Light, like a feather that wants to be silent, she hints at short words, demonstrating a power that thousands of words would not be able to generate. The pair simplifies, invades the current vulgar will to give musical complication a meaning, destroying their adversaries with cascades of pure sparkling bubbles, in the fog of a time that grants no space for warlike disarmament. They shoot, shooting sound creatures clad in ancient magic, with Darkwave to which they put a black leather gag, giving the sinister Coldwave molecules a chance to rule the core of their hearts.  An album that will reach dancefloors in order to cast their gaze into the void and allow themselves the luxury of being afraid of this maturity that the pair has displayed with elegance and power, uniting the sky of defeated dreams with the dying heart of planet Earth...

Song by Song

1 - My Body is Moving

It all begins with a probe in the middle of the universe, a synth launching sweet missiles, then it all gets heavy and a cloud of asteroids becomes muscular, like steroids taking over our bodies. Synthpop imbued with intelligent electronics envelops us to feed the night with unexpected wisdom...

2 - Darkness

An electronic lightning bolt emerges from a grace-soaked synth, with the eye catching the nuance of a darkness, a nightmare waiting to be touched, and it is the magnetic and sensual voice of Fra Marlat, along with the work of his partner Philippe Marlat (Iamnoone), who carves a deep mark with his fingernails in this cloudburst of sound that falls from the celestial face. The two return and do so by writing a song that reveals an intimate propensity to combine different souls, a pact of strength that makes one wince as both the sung and played parts develop the alchemy of these creatures devoted to dark beauty. Fra has grown, a great deal: her voice is a lead feather breaking through the void, incisive, pragmatic, a queen of darkness painting her kingdom. Philippe is a talented machine with the intention of sweeping through the sea of possibilities: what he achieves is the marriage of melody and rhythm without any of the elements prevailing, for an indisputable final maturity. Synthwave, Coldwave, drops of Minimal Wave: it is not in these definitions that you will find the right amount of pain and fascination. Throw yourself into the ice-filled waves and the Gods of Thought, in a joyful way, will be the beacons of truth because this song, like an incredulous torch, will be able to make a small ray bloom, just enough for you to see the depths of this poignant track…

3 - Crystal World

With initial EBM petals intoxicated by a leaden Coldwave, we find ourselves in remembrances Italy Disco Dance of the eighties, with in addition a decadent mood totally current, for a dreamlike feeling as a trap for the inept, where the two probe the terrain of our thoughts. Voluminous display of a talent that can make stars dance...

4 - No Fear

A neurotic contamination (the intro is paralysing orgasm) sows bittersweet sadness, a welcome pass for a lack of fear that becomes necessary. On a robust Synthwave floor, the piece surrounds your thoughts and you find yourself in Electrowave atoms without being able to resist. It is a flight of sparks with a juicy burr that grazes us...

5 - Deep Hole

The synthesis of their musical narrative is revealed: a beat of desire overpowers every effort and we find ourselves in the deep hole of a contaminating dance, hints of singing, hints of playing, to manifest the contact between the essential and the epidermis of a dream capable of producing fatuous fires. When Coldwave gets rid of the genes of fear it becomes a stage for the Nordic part of our thoughts...

6 - Missing

Without respite, another missile loaded with electric Germanic propensity floods our breaths where, after a majestic introduction, we can unleash ourselves in spastic and generous dances. Musically, the track offers us the border between delirium and the robotic application of our pulsating bodies...

7 - Cold Sadness

The song Queen, the Goddess who petrifies breath, throws blades of ice at our legs, demonstrating how the marriage of different musical genres can generate benefit and cruel curiosity. Soft, with undulating movements of simple but devastating keyboards, it makes contact with the past possible and Fra raises her voice register, giving us shivers like star magnets…

8 - Thelema

The magician Philippe uses harmony like a gentle whip, with his Iamnoone reaching out to caress our hearts. Then Fra proves herself to be a performer without sweat in her thoughts, specifying her talent for imparting a poignant sensuality to the sonic mackintosh: you can dance while crying...

9 - No Lights

A comeback single, a decadent metaphor for our destiny, a producer of dark reminders of a past that has lost its dignity. They manage to give it back, letting us know that we cannot escape into the future without mourning lost opportunities. They extinguish the light of a millennium aggravated by sinful tendencies, with music that is a softened summer storm…

10 - Black Lies

A song that seemingly seems different from the others, instead reveals a talent for investigating the possibility of a widespread practice, that of lying covertly. But everything here is sincere, capable of accommodating us in the truth with an effective sound ensemble, where electronics support a sumptuous Synthwave...

11 - Lonelissen 

The pearl that closes this second work is an atomic, pulsating collar of a Post-Punk tested to generate points of contact with musical forms that are in their DNA. It takes us to the nerve centre of their talent, where everything appears to be a mysterious oasis but capable of arousing resounding gothic enthusiasm. One smiles with the tears that stick to these waves that, steeped in tribal minimalism, convince us even more of the clamorous display of class that is this album: give joy a black rose and lead it into the hypothermic desert of our desires...

Alex Dematteis

Musicshockworld

Salford

27th July 2023

https://on-ohnenomen.bandcamp.com/album/the-s-witch