Let’s not make a big thing out of it. Thee Maldoror Kollective used to play Black Metal, now they’re composing dark and convoluted soundscapes. In itself, that is neither a good nor a bad thing. On the other hand, the debate whether or not “Themes from Proxima” represents a work of the Avantgarde is not that interesting anyway.

Instead, what matters is how the band is continually reinventing itself without loosing sight of a red thread. Change is neither compulsive for the Italian two-piece, nor a fashion thing – it is a modus operandi, which binds their outwardly antipolar releases together. It isn’t as if they didn’t care about staying “true” to anything. It’s just that they are not going to commit to anything but their own ideals.

On “Themes for Proxima”, one can almost witness the musicians go through a startling series of transformational exercises in real time: From ethno-samples, massive bigbeat blows and confusingly clustered chords to abstract drum n jazz and ethereal ambient, they jump from one extreme to the next at the speed of light – and this was just to describe what is going on in opening tune “Gorilla Move”.

Later on, Thee Maldoror Kollective dabble their feet into slightly maddening sound art, industrial body music, futuristic opera with both processed and unprocessed vocals, letting the timpanis roll and plugging in their good old guitars for a couple of demonstrative riffs. “Io” even opens with a forelorne violin solo – nothing is too improbable to seem appropriate. With the sudden changes in texture and mood, one would be inclined to call this music cinematic – if it weren’t already the soundtrack to Spanish movie “Proxima”.

It is almost as if this slightly obsessive need to grab up every style they can muster is part of preparing for a magnum opus intended to leave the world speechless. While the focus on their past has somewhat obliterated sight on this merely 25-minute short patchwork quilt, the potential on display certainly warrants the notion that there is something big at work here.

By Tobias Fischer

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