Christopher Nosnibor
Pitched as being for ‘fans of artists such as Harold Budd, Stars Of The Lid and A Winged Victory For The Sullen’, Julien Demoulin’s Everything Forgotten, Everything Remembered is one of those releases that covers many bases, and straddles many forms. Demoulin also records as Silencio, and Everything Forgotten, Everything Remembered is his third release on Sound in Silence following Floods by Silencio in 2013, and his debut full-length, Loose Ends, in 2015.
It’s mellow, mellifluous ambience that leads us on the start of the journey with the slow-drifting spaciousness of ‘A Kingdom’. It’s a space out of time, and if you let yourself drift and wash along with the soft and subtle sounds, you can feel a sense of collapsing and self-reconstruction as the album itself grows and evolves. Everything Forgotten, Everything Remembered drifts and slows and is by no means memorable in itself. In fact, it’s no criticism that nothing much happens here; this is very much overtly an ambient work, whereby notes hover heavily and dappled turns hover in the air.
Demoulin’s collaborators – Frédéric Dufourd (one half of the lo-fi duo Donna), plus vocal drones provided by Alex Copeland (aka IA) and ethereal vocals by Maryam Sirvan (one half of the electronic duo NUM) are stealthy in their presence as the details echo in the distance of a mix dominated by broad ambient washes, interweaving drones and multi-tonal quaverings that hover and drift.
It’s a deeply relaxing experience. So relaxing, in fact that I nodded off during the first listen, and shortly before I did, I typed several lines of notes which were incomprehensible, incoherent bollocks that made no sense the following morning and some had to be cut from the review. This review. I type enough bollocks as it is. But – where I’m going with this is that Everything Forgotten, Everything Remembered will make you forget. It will induce drowsiness. And it’s in this context that the album’s title takes on a certain weight of meaning. The soft, amorphous tomes envelop the listener in a sonic bath that lifts the weights from the muscles and relaxes the muscles. You can’t help but slow your breathing, to unwind. And as the body relaxes, so does the mind.
You may well forget more than you remember while listening to this, but that’s ok. Forgetting is the gateway to a calmer life, and I would love to forget more.
Everything Forgotten, Everything Remembered is an accomplished work, and anyone who thinks creating vast, expansive works, is wrong and has never had to work with anyone or anything. It’s soft, it’s mellow, it’s grace personified. Whatever lies ahead will happen.
Aural Aggravation 