Violent Rains

1. June 7/2.Battles/3.Everlasting/4. Black Is My Anger/5. Relapse/6. Inner Self/7. The Earth/8.Honey/9.Famous or Dead/10. She Devil (2015 remix)

Release Date: October 9, 2015 No Emb Blanc Records

We first nota0200032524_10iced them in 2014 through their debut album entitled ‘Live & Destroy’, songs from which we listened to clubs. Earlier this year we also had the chance to enjoy their live performance during the 24th Wave Gotik Treffen at the stage of Stadtbad. Minuit Machine a.k.a Amandine Stioui and Hélène De Thoury, take inspiration from the minimal electronic and cold wave scenes and offer music with sensitivity, strong lyrics and danceable rhythms in the synthesizer.

Can’t you see you broke my bones
You failed me hard
You let me down…

Following the trail that began towards the end of 1980s by bands such as Auscult, Feu Ma Mere, End of Data, Film Noir, L’An III, Minuit Machine are putting more emotion and melody (i.e. ‘Ego’, ‘Trauma’) than the average band of this music genre and they give their whole psyche to their music and their performance. The combined effect of the lyrics and the accompanying melodies, should not find you on a day of self-criticism as the atmosphere of the band’s music reaches parts of the mind that sometimes is best to be left unstimulated and ‘quiet’!

Flashing lights cutting through my brain
Distant shouts echoing in my head…

Both Amandine and Hélène (who also has a side project of her own called Hante) are very expressive performers but the emotional strength that is emitted through their music is something hard to overcome especially after a live performance. The vocals bring with them something from the bitter emotional detachment that comes perhaps as a consequence of having come out of a challenging, almost destructive situation. Especially Amandine has a unique bass vocal tone that gives to the music and the lyrics, bitterness but also emotional strength, while the melodies that Hélène is playing animate even more our thoughts as we listen to their music.

I am the voices that make you feel ashamed again
And I am the darkness
That makes you want to hurt yourself…

The video clips that the band has released so far provide an indication of the overall aesthetics that the musicians are admiring: the simplicity of minimal art and the emotional strength that was characteristic of the silent films of the 1920s. I was impressed by the band’s performance in Leipzig which was accompanied by very interesting visuals that combined all the previously mentioned elements. Minuit Machine is a new young band whose stage appearance could be further improved but is a band who has a lot to say and offer and deserve our full attention.

Following the enormous popularity of their debut album ‘Live&Destroy’ which is now sold out, the band will release a new album entitled ‘Violent Rains’ in a few days time, on October 9, 2015 through No Emb Blanc Records. The album is already available to preorder from here https://minuitmachine.bandcamp.com/album/violent-rains. Four tracks from this forthcoming album, are available through the official bandcamp page of the band and show that the melodies become more electronic, quicker and more ‘optimistic’ in a sense. Listening to ‘Violent Trains’ just after ‘Live&Destroy’ provides a welcomed sense of relief from the emotionally darker atmosphere of the songs of the debut album by Minuit Machine.

She’s tired with the thinking, honey,
Her mind is quitting as you drive
She’s merging in the landscapes, honey

 Blaue Rosen box

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