L’0nde N0IRe – KUNST?! (Album Review)

KUNST?! is the new album by L’0nde N0IRe, an EDM artist. The album is made up of very short songs. 

The first track, ‘KUNST?! (STUDY I)’ starts on a chilled note. Here we get a thick and laidback kick, which is accompanied by a slightly abrasive sound. Then come two instrumental elements that give flavour to the song, if you will: a jumpy, ping-like key and what feels like a snare. It’s a very chilled but bassy track, the vocalist (a male) not singing but rather posing questions on what is and isn’t art. 

‘Eyeless Composition’ is a busy song, taking a different route compared to the reflective opener. Two vocalizations, one male and one female, alternate on this clublike song. The kicks here are rapid, tripping on themselves, with the overall energy fast to make it hard for the listener to catch their breath. This is a song for dancing, although lyrically it speaks of seeing, frames and subjects. 

‘Broken Geometry’ has thick bass and glitchy elements. I find the song overbearing. In other words, it seems to dull the senses, not giving the listener a chance to think. 

‘Phantom Interface’ follows. Its pulsating kick and relentless stringy elements speak to the body, enough to make it move. The kick progression is steady and impressive. The instrumentation gains more tempo as the song progresses. 

In ‘Plastic Emotion’, you initially get strings, a bassy kick following. The vocalisation here is noteworthy: you have a mean-sounding vocalist singing out very loudly. Shouting, actually.  

In ‘Residual Self’, the kick is cleanly loud and bassy. There’s something very likable about the kick. The vocalist, a male, is very subtle and almost reluctant yet melodic. This is a standout track for me, a track one wishes was longer. 

A thick, trap-like kick is one of the sounds in ‘Color Theory Collapse’. I hear two vocalists in the song: a male and female alternate, but some lyrics remain the same. ‘Too many images, no difference’, we hear. It’s a song you can say is half protest and half dance. At one point you wanna hear why things are collapsing, and at another point, you want to be taken by the noise elements of the song.

‘Concrete Silence’ follows. It starts ironically with some ambient noise, if you will. Then there’s a sound element that sounds like a steely water drop falling from a tap. It disappears soon after, followed by a male vocalist with a matter-of-fact delivery. ‘No signal’, we hear. Then comes a kick that’s not loud but steady and enjoyable. The track gives a clean and minimalist feel, although it also carries abrasive elements.

The next song seems to continue from the previous, but this time we have a female vocalist. ‘No response’, she says in this song titled ‘Zero Signal’. The delivery sounds like a very pared down version of spoken word. The instrumentation alternates between a somewhat chilled trap feel and frantic EDM feel. 

‘KUNST?! (STUDY II)’ closes off the album. The track takes some trap aesthetic. The vocalist is female, and she sounds like she’s in a singing mood, although there’s also something ethereal in her singing. 

SCORE/Excellent: The tracks are very short, and I think in a way this respects the listener who perhaps has many things to do. The effect is that it’s an album that teases you. My feeling’s that one might be tempted to return to the project to give it another listen. Lyrically, the album is also not overwhelming, with the artist rather saying much in his press kit. This is an artist worth your listen!

[We rank singles, EPs, and albums on a scale of Poor, Mediocre, Good, Excellent, and Outstanding] 

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