Restless Belarus expatriates DYMNA LOTVA release ‘Come and See’ (Ідзі І Глядзі), another lavish music video for the opening track from their current album, The Land under the Black Wings: Blood (Зямля Пад Чорнымі Крыламі: Кроў). This harrowing piece adds an accordion to black metal that is also prominently featured in the clip:
Video by Jancyk Kurcavy
DYMNA LOTVA comment: “We have never treated music videos as just another promotional tool”, enigmatic singer Katsiaryna ‘Nokt Aeon’ Mankevich declares. “We see every clip as a chance to explore the story and emotions behind a track even further through visual means. This video was originally planned for 2023, but due to many reasons, we are only able to reveal it now. Despite the long wait, its topics have become even more relevant as Plague, War, Famine, and Death have not gone away. These Four Horsemen have only moved closer towards all of us. Then again, just maybe these are actually Four Horsewomen.”
Ipecac is honoured to release the new album from legendary musician, composer and arranger, Jean Claude Vannier. Jean Claude Vannier et son orchestre de mandolines, out on Feb 14th, 2025 is a playful album of beautiful reveries composed on mandolin and accordion, that are both poetic and unrestrained. As a taster, the new track ‘La 2CV rouillée’ (‘The rusty 2CV’) has been shared.
About the new track, Vannier comments;
I’ve always dreamed of writing for a mandolin orchestra – the instrument’s tremors seemed apt to expose romantic and sentimental melodies. It brings back old memories.
On Sundays, my father used to take us to the countryside in his 2cv.
It’s a funny car, with the slightest change in speed, a flick of the brake or the gas pedal, and it rocks like a duck on the water.
During these drives, I was unable to see the landscape because I was seasick.
My father was an inventor, and had come up with a rudimentary air bag that went off at the slightest jolt.
Those rides in the countryside were a nightmare for me, and I now avoid trips in the 2CV…
A pinch of strings, a hint of childhood, melodies that touch the heart, orchestration that is always unexpected… these are just some of the elements to emerge from this album.
Ipecac is honoured to release the new album from legendary musician, composer and arranger, Jean Claude Vannier. Jean Claude Vannier et son orchestre de mandolines, out on Feb 14th, 2025 is a playful album of beautiful reveries composed on mandolin and accordion, that are both poetic and unrestrained. As of now, the new track ‘Comme les enfants savent aimer’ is shared.
About the new track, Vannier comments;
“When I was a child, my parents often took us to dinner at the restaurant in Parc Montsouris. There was a bandstand by the lake, with a few mandolins playing fashionable tunes, and the moon was shimmering on the surface of the water, where an enigmatic boat was moored. I would have loved to have gone with the waves, with the mandolines. Later, I spent many a night lying in the boat, dreaming of this music of love. All these memories led me to record this album with my mandolinist friend, Vincent Beer Demande.”
A pinch of strings, a hint of childhood, melodies that touch the heart, orchestration that is always unexpected… these are just some of the elements to emerge from this album.
Hear ‘Comme les enfants savent aimer’ here:
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Photo credit: Léo Alestro
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The album title translates as Jean Claude Vannier and his mandolin orchestra, and this marks the first time that the ever-creative composer has written specifically for the mandolin. The album features fellow enthusiast Vincent Beer-Demander, whose mandolin is multiplied by an orchestra to form a singular sound palette, carefully combined with the accordion of Grégory Daltin.
Mike Patton, who collaborated with Vannier on the 2019 release, Corpse Flower, has this to say about getting to put out his new album on Ipecac, ”Jean Claude is a dear friend, mentor and a wonderfully gifted and decorated composer. Read: LEGEND. To have worked with him is an unmitigated honour. His writing and arrangements have influenced an ocean of artists and I call myself one of the lucky ones who have crossed his path. He was writing ground-breaking stuff before I was born. He has affected me deeply and I’m forever grateful and in AWE.”
The album was created as a music score for a non-existent silent film, and tells the love story of a young boy we follow through time. The second single tells more of the story…
So at night, during the week, I’d climb the facade of her building, we’d kiss through the glass and me hanging off her balcony.
On the third floor.
It felt like a condom, this cold tile between her lipstick and our two tongues working like crazy.
We loved each other like children know how.
As if for the last time.
Jean Claude Vannier, whom the press refer to as “the rare bird”, has worked over the past 60 years most famously with Serge Gainsbourg and Jane Birkin, as well as artists such as Beck and Sean Lennon. He’s worked on countless soundtracks, released six solo albums and is a French pop-culture icon who’s composed for Eurovision, directed videos, exhibited paintings, hosted radio shows and published short stories.
This new album features mandolin virtuoso Vincent Beer-Demander, who has won multiple awards and collaborated with the French National Orchestra, Czeske Philharmonic, Mid-Atlantic Symphonic Orchestra and hundreds more around the world. Sounding like nothing else that either Demander nor Vannier has done before.
Also featured is Grégory Daltin, whose accordion playing brings another dimension to this beautiful album.
Our last encounter with Brighton band Dog of Man was on the release of the single ‘Hello MI5’back in the spring. A frantic, frenetic genre clash, it proved to be quite an eye-opener.
And how, here we have the album, which they describe as ‘music to lose your shit to, a ritual of intense catharsis’, ‘delves into neuroses, madness and breakdown, delivered with punchy grooves, spidery guitar lines and gloriously distorted accordion.’
Wait, what? Accordion? This is not an instrument one tends to associate with any kind of heavy psych / weird indie / thrashy (post) punk hybrid, but then, Dog of Man do their own thing and make music their way.
The title is, thankfully, ironic. Instead of jaunty indie or breezy upbeat yacht rock Everything is Easy, the band promise an album that ‘delves into themes of neuroses, madness and breakdown – all set to punchy grooves, spidery guitar lines and fizzing accordion.’ Well, if it’s fizzing, maybe it is the instrument of choice.
Single cut ‘Turpentine’ blasts in with some ramshackle guitar that’s rushed and urgent, and as much as it’s indie with hints of The Wedding Present and early Ash, as well as contemporaries Asylums, and sets the manic pace for the album, which sees them skidding into the skewed shanty, ‘Accidentally Honest’. ‘Have you ever been accidentally honest?’ they ask. Well, have you?
With ‘No Click, No Edits’, this is properly rough and ready, raw and immediate, seemingly growing in pace and intensity as the album progresses. ‘Stroudits’ is both punky and theatrical with a dash of The Stranglers in the mix, before ‘Lurking in the Overnight Bag’ goes blues metal with a roustabout pirate slant, and reading that description back makes it sound absolutely shit, but it’s a work of twisted manic genius condensed into aa sub-two-minute adrenaline blast. Doorsy keyboards and nagging guitars reminiscent of Orange Juice are pulped together on ‘Headonastick’ before it shifts from being a driving racket that calls to mind Pulled Apart by Horses before veering off into a hoedown for the break. Are these guys nuts? It seems probable.
There’s just so much going on here; the chaotic cacophony of Gallon Drunk played with the swagger of Led Zeppelin and harpooned by the energy and knowingness of Electric Six are all packed together to tightly it’s impossible to really pick it apart or really fathom why it works, let alone has any kind of appeal. But perhaps the mystery is the appeal. When something is so crazy it shouldn’t work but does, it’s both because and in spite of it. And they make it sound so effortless.
Aural Aggravation 