MAA ANTAA YÖN VAIENTAA

HORTE was born into the Finnish underground psyche / postrock / stoner scene in the mid-2010s. They are inspired by their glacial landscapes filled with the northern lights to recreate a deep, enigmatic, astonishing and fearful sound, thus differentiating themselves from the SIGUR ROS and other EXPLOSIONS IN THE SKY. An album which ignores the arbitrary limits of language, egos, creative processes and gender norms, and which lets the music speak for itself, the singing in Finnish accentuating and leading into dreams. They collect natural recordings in the field and then try to organize their music afterwards, a great musical challenge.

Music of reverberations, gothic waves, intoxicating percussions, the feeling of leaving in a bottomless and endless space time, to listen to in one go since a conceptual album! Fluorescent psychedelic shoegaze that we can actually listen to at night when the Earth is finally silent; yes I had to translate the title for you at one point, it's done.

"Pelko Karistaa Järjen" signs a rave opening with ethereal New Age sounds; nature tunes on a hypnotic mantra basis; a heavy monolithic bass with percussion punctuating the rise, a tortured guitar à la FRIPP, a dark interior journey of all beauty in achaic musical arcades, POPOL VUH in the distance. "Ilman Nurkka" follows with a sound that reminds me of DEAD CAN DANCE rantings for trance, its repetitive mechanics, soaring voices of fairies and other forest spirits. The synths amplifying it all. "Kilpemme" follows and plunges here into the atmosphere of SIGUR ROS, sober base and oppressive sound effects; Riikka's casting voice in her native language rests and captivates, the crescendo is simple but raw, obvious but intense, tortured again. The music no longer belongs to prog on all sides, it is retro-synth that nestles in this singular, austere, divine and confusing sound. '' Valoa On Liikaa '' continues on Frippian tricks of Discipline ', overwhelming spleen, dark beauty, minimalist; the sober electronic synths accompany the voice of violins and give hope to this title in which we risk getting tangled.

"Kun Joki Haihtuu" goes on, yes you read that right, this album is a concept: here trip hop like THE GATHERING was able to explore, smooth and predictable; the station wagon surprises with its rough, industrial, unstructured side, then the association sends on a Finnish mantra; final in moving, tearful and intimate decrescendo, superb; end which leads to "Väisty Tieltä" and a trance worthy of MY BLOODY VALENTINE, at the time when I was looking for prog since it was no longer. Heady dark melody on an intense bass-organ fuzz, angelic canticle voice, reverberating jerky rhythm, we believe in the broken record (ancestor of the CD for those who have known this age!); voice and music merge to create a musical state that takes between gothic, brainless new wave and ethereal; the final rise to make us reach a paroxysm of notes in waves reminding me of XTC a time. '' Konttaa, Ne Konttaa II '' with the resumption of a 2017 title, even colder. Austere, cold, disturbing, biblical, heralding the end of the world, the end of the album anyway.

This ephemeral post rock that can be listened to alone, that goes beyond the musical creative process, sensitive, sensual, mystical, soothing, enigmatic, indefinite or dreamlike, put in a trance on an addictive slowtempo, put in abyss on repetitions of samples, disturbing ; captivating as well as alienating; this sound will not leave you indifferent far from it. This strange group which draws its sounds from nature itself and which retranslates it to you with its instruments and its feelings to flood you with joy, that is what HORTE seated at.