released July 18, 2024
REVIEWS
GREY CLAY RADIO (T.Čelet)
What hits me first is that State of Control is a gorgeous sounding album. Each track is beautifully crafted with a richness and depth which is both rewarding and compelling. Seemingly a dark listen, projecting desolate images on the wall, there is this kind of intimacy to them that draws you closer rather than alienating you. Little moments of humanity breaking through like the scattered personal belongings and exposed wallpaper in a half demolished house. A little reading about Bégin’s work and the themes in his studies reveals a fabulously deep conceptual basis for State of Control including, ‘… the analysis of the complex and ecological relationships that are woven between bodies, devices, devices and environments, and which make it possible to generate new perceptions as well as new forms of sensitivities and knowledge.’
And this, for me, is the key to the album. It is not an unattached, mawkish gaze at the scene; it is about one’s relationship with it. The music acts less as the outside narrator and more as testimony from within the picture, asking, ‘…are you moved by this report?’ Nowhere is this more felt than in the sixth track, ’Time sleep. Monitoring every second’ - an absolutely brilliant image from which a voice is heard, as if oblivious of the suspended tension of its surroundings. The album notes, and to some extent the album art, include lines of programming code which is a devilishly cool and oblique device to add. Unless you are familiar with the language (which I am not) then this reads like a poem or chant with repeating phrases and introduces several more layers of concern to invade the personal. As well as encompassing some track titles and themes, the code lays in a feel of automated self-consciousness; of being monitored from within your own life as you sleep and eat and work. The very inclusion of a track title such as ‘Thoughtcrime’ plus other Orwellian references leave you in no doubt that this is a dystopian proposition, but one it seems we have already voluntarily submitted to.
AVANT MUSIC NEWS
avantmusicnews.com/2024/07/22/amn-reviews-richard-begin-state-of-control-2024-zerok
This Is Darkness
I was intrigued by this album as soon I started reading the blurb… “Richard Bégin is a professor of media and film studies at the University of Montreal and a researcher-creator in art and sound design. “Phase 5” is the result of his research on disaster as a medium of perception.” The resulting music does not disappoint – with multi-textured tones and skilful combined elements of dark ambient, drone, and noise, the end result is an album that stays with you long after you’ve finished playing it. For fans of dark ambient with an electronic / industrial edge. Remarkable!
Born in Quebec city, Richard Bégin is a professor of media and film studies at the University of Montreal and a researcher-creator in art and sound design. “Phase 5” is the result of his research on disaster as a medium of perception. Working as much from electronic instruments, analog sound devices and field recordings, he arranges and combines sounds in such a way as to generate affects related to memory, loss and fragmentation. Inspired by both hauntology, the post-apocalyptic imagination, noise, Frank Zappa and the smell of wet wood, his work is the sound accompaniment of Paul Valery's phrase: " the future is not what it used to be".
Music by Richard Bégin
Mastered by Raffaele Pezzella (a.k.a. Sonologyst)
Design by RhaD, Layout by Matteo Mariano
Cat. Num. ZK11
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