Baikonour - Your Ear Knows Future

aka Jean-Emmanuel Krieger condenses a double influence, that of Versailles, where he was born - the wealthy suburb that saw the emergence of Air and of the so-called French touch - and that of Brighton, where he now lives among a number of fellow sound explorers. The most notable of which being Fujiya and Miyagi’s Lee Adams, who played the drums in this new album and who certainly contributed to its Krautrock tone.

Baikonour’s electronica owns a lot indeed to German prog-rock but also to Eno-like ambient. It mixes computer-generated sounds with acoustic instruments, all recorded by Krieger except the drums.

The album begins in a very calm way; nothing to do with nightclub techno, indeed one would rather be tempted to dub it drawing-room electronica. Surprisingly too, it is a very narrative, representative kind of music, that could very well suit a film soundtrack in the same capacity as Popol Vuh, another major influence of Krieger’s.

The first few tracks are yet not very catchy; long minutes where nothing happens, until it fades out uselessly. But as the album goes along, one realises the coherence of it, not as a collection of tracks, but as one long shot of atomic music. Krieger demands that it be not listened to with the shuffle function on on your iPod, and that would be a stupid thing to do indeed, because ‘tracks’ follow one another without an interruption, in the same sonic motion.

It gradually thickens and tightens as the album moves toward its end, with a tant of new wave philosophy – Bauhaus’ tribal drums, New Order’s instrumental suicides and desperate ballads. Like waves long a-coming and finally smashing on the rock(s), it maintains the listener under pressure from one end to the other.

‘Your Ear Knows Future’, the title written in what Krieger calls ‘accidental English’ sums up well his attempt at transcending both language and harmony; speechless but narrative, serial but atonal, his music partakes to this musical renewal (and deconstruction) started in the 70s and which now benefits from an updated technology to pursue its quest further. Of course, Krautrock is not the future, but its rediscovery in Brighton at the moment is a very encouraging step toward it.