Iszoloscope - All Is Immensity And Chaos

Iszoloscope
All Is Immensity And Chaos
Ant-Zen

The near-twenty year legacy Yann Faussurier has carved out through Iszoloscope should, with the benefit of hindsight, be regarded as one of the most accomplished in rhythmic noise. His themes of spiritual and cosmic isolation have never been far from hand, and the slow expansion of his production style to include richer ritual elements has helped to underline the more contemplative dimension of Faussurier’s music. After something of a hiatus, 2010’s The Edge Of Certainty and 2016’s False Vacuum represented progressive watersheds for Iszoloscope, bringing forward more melodic and harmonic elements. All Is Immensity And Chaos retreats somewhat from that more mellifluous path, but finds a way to connect Iszoloscope’s latter era experimentation with the breaks-heavy noise upon which Faussurier first built his reputation.

A sample of Werner Herzog reflecting on the cthonic chaos of the jungle while filming Fitzcarraldo is as good of an entre-nous as any into All Is Immensity And Chaos‘ mixture of percussive brutality and saturnine reflection. Over its eight tracks the record never strays toward either of those poles for too long, and instead maintains an equatorial balance. The way pieces like “In The Face Of Descent” communicate aggression and meditation via intermittent attacks and releases feels like a condensed revisiting of foundational LP Au Seuil Du Néant. While that record often alternated between noise and ambiance track for track, most of All Is Immensity And Chaos‘ compositions shuffle back and forth across the line. While that does mean that some of the songs blend in with one another, it also lends the record a satisfying denseness and unity. The martial trot and strings of the opening title track are punctuated with wheezing, recuperative gasps just like closer “I Want Something My Existence Can’t Offer”, tying the two together even though the latter’s low-fi distorted explosions are a far cry from the stern, almost regal tone of the former.

A victory lap of sorts, All Is Immensity And Chaos offers a concise package of just about everything that’s made Iszoloscope such a beloved entity. Despite clocking in at the fifty minute mark it feels much tighter than that, with every second building upon the lean and explosive engine of scraping beats and solemn echoes Faussurier brings to bear. It doesn’t redefine Iszoloscope, but it captures and catalyzes all of the project’s frantic and desperate mien.

Buy it.