Lavina Yelb – Apapneas Hypmne Somome
2010 seems a lifetime ago. Pre-COVID. Pre-Trump. Pre-Culture Wars. Now “reconstituted” for a 2024 physical reissue (back then, this was download only) Lavina Yelb’s debut album Apapneas Hypmne Somome (AHS) doesn’t just hail from a different when, it hails from an altogether different where – the temperate rainforests of Chile in simply geographic/aesthetic terms, the idiosyncratic mind of Anibal Bley in both the micro and macro sense, however.
Stylistically, AHS is all over the map as a consequence, hypnotic rhythms acting as the only real unifying force. As proven over several LPs since though, Bley’s hand is deft when his broad brushstrokes could have allowed his many colours to run too freely. The source from which all that follows it first flowed, AHS is a strikingly minimal yet hallucinatory encounter in which “ambiguities are exalted and words are shuffled out of their meanings.”
An organic collection of sounds and tribal rhythms dressed in a rich tapestry of loops and keyboard FX gathered from the boundary of the forest and urban worlds, AHS’s lolloping drums drip after a downpour to a chorus of pulsating frogs and agitated parrots. Dogs bark and cockerels crow into the rumbling unknown beyond the fence, wooden percussion and rattles ushering a sense of liminal unease through jaunty chiptune, budget raygun shooters, and synth oscillations that rise to the verdant canopy above. The screech of a car arriving at speed initially upsets the balance before fading into serene key patterning, dial-tone static segueing into gong-splashed ambience and unsettling, mildly manipulated field recordings of children playing.
Pure sound collage, “Xilo” bridges both worlds as it rearranges a leaky storage room ahead of some grunting swine rooting around its most obscure corners. At the other end of the spectrum, “Prix” is endlessly playful as it channels a parallel universe, Oompa Loompa cultural anthem, while the standout “Violene” harnesses a gruff, cartoonish vocal sample that’s looped into an off-kilter rhythm as more theatrically chopped vocals rain down onto marionette chimes. An impressive and skilful composition, harder drum blasts and plugged-in noise sting the tail, both putting a smile on your face and freeing your very spirit to move to the hand-drums just as ancient ancestors did. Those from a time before 2010, before – perhaps – time was even a concept.
~The “reconstituted” edit of Apapneas Hypmne Somome is out now via Psychic Sounds.~