“Morthem Vlade Art's precise, melancholy, electronic sound means they won't ever be mistaken for pop idols. It's a shame, because until the mid-80s you could be a quirky synthesizer pop genius, and it didn't matter how bleak your songs, you could still have chart success. Morthem Vlade Art are a band dislocated in time and can now only look forward to inhabiting the fringes of pop music, which is fine because things are always more interesting there.”

– The Guardian (UK) five stars (out of 5)

“Morthem Vlade Art are a Parisian duo whose albums rival any of those late-night chill-out compilations, with a little help from some dislocated electronic grooves. Slow Wave Sleep is a retrospective from 1988-2002 that showcases some of Morthem Vlade Art's finest tracks from their first three full-length releases. Slow Wave Sleep easily provides some great after-party music, though on occasion tracks like The Cure-esque "Counter Canter" or the icy cold, Aphex Twin-styled "Crimson Lung" take center stage and you realize just how interesting this shit is.”

– Scratch Magazine

“Morthem Vlade Art are hard to categorise. This “best of” retrospective comes on a disc full of crystal clean production values, but what they are exactly or even what their sound is, isn’t quite so clear. In fact, it is as unusually murky as the music is strange. The album opens with “The Rope,” a moody track accentuated by heavily effected, spoken word vocals. Each of the cuts that follow veers off into similar experimentations of noise, electronic music and synthesised sound. At times, the Parisian duo seem like they are suffering from that ’80s displacement syndrome that wracks and haunts many gothic and dark electronic bands. And yet, their complex weavings of noise, with purer and more refined auditory elements, feels entirely new and of their own creation. Slow Wave Sleep is a disc that is haunted by blips and bleeps and odd little sound contortions that seem to spontaneously drift in and out of the musical forefront. The stark mechanical atmosphere is blended with warmer electronics and vocals (often reminiscent of David Bowie’s circa the Outside/Earthling years). While generally upbeat, Morthem Vlade Art also manage some surprisingly bleak and sombre moments within the 14 tracks of this release, like “Antichamber,” which falls only steps short of industrial. So all over the map, Slow Wave Sleep, requires a whole new one drawn for it. Weirdness and pure unbridled creativity are contagious though, and as such, definitely worth spinning for those who enjoy getting their brain spun.”

– Exclaim!

This duo from the suburbs of Paris first gained a large following in France with the release of three demos, which led to the re-release of their debut album Herbo Dou Diable on the German label Paindaimonium in 1998. The debut won high acclaim throughout Europe culminating in the band being tagged as one of the most promising new acts to emerge that year. With its second release, Organic But Not Mental, MVA let itself be carried along by its many musical, literary and filmic inspirations as they turned over a new leaf. The release is electrified with mechanical atmospheres, samples linked to bodily phobias and deconstructed industrial schemes. Their third release, titled Antechamber, revels in lush electronics and marks the start of a trilogy of releases that tap cinematic notions to explore the suffocation and “mal-être” of modern life, without reverting to clichéd cynicism.

All of this is heady stuff perhaps, but screw it – because the elaborate electronics, sleek dance hall grooves and synthetic atmospheres will have you tapping your foot and crying on the dance floor in no time. As the music displays its reflective sweetness and shows that good old self abandon and deeply intellectual lyrics actually can coexists and culminate in a mad late night dance party. And ultimately that’s all we got, right? Slow Wave Sleep presents a collection of songs from the band’s first three full length releases.

< back