Dead Man Ray
Berchem

LA RECENSIONE

I like wedding parties.
Of others, since I haven't invited myself to mine yet.
Legend has it that Dead Man Ray is an idea that originated at a wedding party. I imagine that Daan Stuyven (piano, wurlitzer, hammond, moog, chameleonic voice) and Rudy Trouvé (guitars and sound disorders), after some unknown conversation, with a cracked eye and breath that smells of prosecco, decided to collaborate with each other, overcome by the fumes of alcohol, when you don't think straight and everything seems possible.

That's how the most 'mainstream' group of Trouvé began - or Stuyven's most 'alternative' band, strumming in the latter's house during the post-celebration (and post-hangover) meeting, transforming a gathering of inebriates into the group's first real song, with the prophetic title: Chemical. Evidently, it was about chemistry if from that impromptu jam, without too many pretensions, over the span of about ten years, three records (the last one "Cago" from 2002, produced by Steve Albini), an EP, plus a few singles materialized. All on the HeavenHotel label.
The album in question, "Berchem", is the first and probably the best.

The first offspring of this swift marriage, Chemical, has an essential structure, built on two notes of guitar, drums, and bass that play themselves as easily as possible and a blazing chorus.
Stop, that's it. Few frills and here comes a probable, perfect pop song.
And this will be the approach for the remaining sixteen songs on the album, sketching melodies, absentmindedly as if conversing among drunkards and winking a bit everywhere, but without delving, as is proper to Pop Music. Well done, I'd add.
A heterogeneous and playful album, drawing from Punk in WW3, from the Trip Hop of Inc. which vaguely recalls Portishead, Bread has a country rock aftertaste and so on and so forth.
An avalanche of drafts and fragments of songs, later assembled on the computer. And if the result isn't as fragmented as it might seem, the credit surely goes to the meticulous cut-and-sew work carried out by the two in the studio, and the single, true thread, Stuyven's voice.
Sometimes deep and baritone reminiscent of Nick Cave, sometimes cartoonish, it molds perfectly, lying down on every sound construction.

If some records are born like this, spontaneously, they certainly know how to convey the emotion we seek when listening to music.
That emotion often materializes into the goofy smile that spreads across my face while I'm in the car and Chemical starts playing from the speakers with its falsetto chorus: "Chemical Nation, don't stop at the start rebegin" and I imitate it with a somewhat silly voice - maybe because I don't think straight and everything seems possible.