Cassette Review: Lionel Dixit "No Edge" (obsedante! recs.)

[€4 // Edition of 70 // https://obsedante.bandcamp.com/album/obs-19-noxedge // http://www.obsedante.blogspot.com/]

As a small background note, this was released with Stoned to Death (another label) for Cassette Store Day in Prague.     If you just let the heaviness of that set in for a minute, then I can tell you as well that these are two live pieces (one per side) and I'm under the assumption that each was also improvised though I cannot be sure on that claim.   Still, for as many cassettes as I seemigly get of live and improvised music I never seem to have enough.   Whenever I hear one I always feel as if it's been forever since my last one.

To say that this cassette is percussion-heavy would be an understatement.    Despite all of the other sounds (And there are quite a few) the drums are what stand out most here as they can keep the tempo and beat, but sometimes they even march to their own drummer.    From cymbal crashes to the smooth sound of a lounge lizard night club drummer, the pace can also quicken without notice and the drums just become rather hectic and chaotic.  

Perhaps the best and only way to accurately describe this would be to say that most artists/bands can consider the drums to be their backbone and this is made present by the fact that most drummers usually sit in the back, behind the rest of the musicians.    In the case of Lionel Dixit though it feels as if the drummer would be in the front with everyone else behind him as the percussion is the center piece of the sound.

There are horn noises. which are mostly the trumpet, and then there is also a flute which doesn't come out as easily as the trumpet to me for some reason.    There is that sort of Darth Vader synth mixed with the chugging of a train and just an overall sound of lasers.   It's odd because as much as that part of it can resemble Flash Gordon or something set in the future the drumming at the time can then sound tribal and almost take you back to the past.

At one point there is a breathing pattern that almost sounds like chanting and there are the Kung Fu Panda tones behind that, but for the most part I would describe this as "jazz noise", which a bland label I know but it kind of gives you an idea of what to expect from similar artists from SMG to Roadside Picnic.