Jango is the 4th album from Montreal electro/IDM duo Tolemn (Kirk Lau and Michael Filtz). In a way, it’s a return to their roots. After opuses 2 and 3 (Sings Vermillion and Cities Unravel), which openly flirted with experimental, drone, atonality and conceptual post-rock, Jango offers a more caressing redeployment of the harmonic cushion and melodic lines, rather like the initial Nevada Springs, while asserting a more pronounced IDM character and sustained pulse. The guitar is also more obvious than on Nevada, lending a more electric than strictly electronic finish to the whole. The textures are airy, refusing the heaviness of a compact dancefloor oozing density. Instead, it’s a call for individual choreography, relaxed and introspective, in an uncluttered, non-stifling atmosphere. Sometimes it veers towards post-rock, but never purely cerebral. Hypertrophy, the last track on the album, is a thrilling electro-rock synthesis that you’ll love to play over and over again, and which propels you along like a pleasant, reasonable adrenaline shot. A superb album whose live performance you can hear on 6 April at Ursa, Martha Wainwright’s little place on Avenue du Parc. It’s a promising launch night, because as well as Tolemn, the ARC band will also be releasing an album (I talked about their new album in a review, read it HERE).
