Ocean Viva Silver is the pseudonym of Valérie Vivancos, a Paris-based sound artist whose work centres around an interest in the physical properties of sound. Îpe, her new cassette for Industrial Coast, forms part of a series called Releasing The Spirit Of Object wherein a combination of electronics, found sound and musique concrète electroacoustics are used to explore a particular object. In the case or îpe, that object is a piece of wood, the intention being to identify its distinct voice within two twenty-minute compositions.

The end result is forty minutes of complex and thrilling noise, carefully curated so as not to become a sprawling, dissonant, ugly collection. On ‘Par Le Menu’, you hear blocks of reverberating sound juddering into view, forming a murky bass tone underpinning squeaks, taps, hissing, violent squalls of distorted electronics and an unpredictable universe of sonic colour. There are moments here of intense beauty, ambient pads emerging suddenly out of nowhere to give the piece a symphonic, beatific edge.

The B-side, ‘A Contrario’, dispenses with the languid pace of its counterpart and instead opts for a sense of turbulent volatility, all skittish sounds and a wild, restless, ever-changing harshness, interspersed with indecipherable vocal incantations.

Îpe by Ocean Viva Silver is released January 20 2020 by Industrial Coast.

Words: Mat Smith

(c) 2020 Further.