The magic lantern music of Razen spirals into ever more fanatic territory as its iconoclastic core, Brecht Ameel and Kim Delcour, incorporate turntablist Guilhem All from Brest into the fold for their latest work, Mirages. Like a refracted prism of misdirected inputs, the sounds that emanate from the first seconds to the last are uncanny, unpredictable and unplaceable within the realm of their cinematic oddness. Vietnamese flute, oscillator, chopped-up vinyls and a range of uncomfortable techniques bring about a series of sandblown, rock-encrusted desert mirages which reveal themselves from the stillness and spin frenetically into the unknown.
Recorded during a five-day residency at the Echo Chamber in Volta, Brussels, Mirages is more than just product of its parts, as Razen's new configuration whirrs into a collective consciousness of its own. The references shared by this unlikely trio are as disparate as their backgrounds: Mika Vainio's deconstructed techno and traditional folk music from around the world find common alignments through these interpreters of Early Music and avant-garde turntablism. The result is a fluid landscape of dream visions, churned out as a flurry of sonic images harkening to something new yet ancestral. Like mirages themselves - those mysterious figments of optical experience - these recordings contain strange wonders for the senses, the competing experiences of displacement and contemplation refracting through sound and silence. Within the reverberating walls of a disused industrial fridge, Razen has once again found untethered grounds for experimentation, transcending physical barriers to enter the realm of the visionary. With Mirages, they have impressed upon us an auditory Fata Morgana whose effects remain long after its notes have melted back into the unknown.








