Igorrr
Savage Sinusoid

One day my neurotransmitters decided to behave in a very funny way: the result was an ecstatic moment (which my psychiatrist preferred to call a 'manic episode') in which I attempted to outline an entire system of aesthetics and morality based on the concept of 'Syncretism', and to propose this new system to the world, babbling on every occasion about such abstraction.

And if Syncretism exists in music, it is also thanks to those artists who know how to appropriate the most diverse languages and become fluent speakers; those musicians, in short, who are not ashamed to steal disparate ideas from a wide variety of sources, showing no shame in proving to be damn good at mixing it all together.

Igorrr is the pseudonym of Gautier Serre, a French musician whom I admit I discovered only recently. He comfortably qualifies as a genius in what he does, and what he does is shove genres like extreme metal, IDM, trip hop, baroque music, traditional French music, gypsy music, Indian stuff with sitar, sounds made with electrotechnical equipment, etc., into a giant blender, to the point of reminding me of Feyerabend and his "anything goes"...

...producing a remarkably effective product, even if clearly "out of his mind." There is a very recognizable trait, equipped (for reasons I cannot explain, given the absurdly composite nature of the creative process used) with a notable stylistic coherence. Probably monsieur Serre has well assimilated a variety of languages to the point of feeling at ease in combining their forms and stylistic elements; I am told that his main influences include Bach, Domenico Scarlatti, Chopin, Taraf de Haidouks, Aphex Twin, Meshuggah, Cannibal Corpse... Syncretic!

To break the ice right away, the album I present here begins with a couple of inhuman screams, followed by a massive introductory riff, a prelude to a moment of extreme animal lyricism, among the most shocking (and hilarious) I have ever heard.

Mr. Serre knows how to surround himself with highly skilled musicians and extraordinary voices, and he has a mastery in providing his tracks with a very convincing structural form, even if in the same composition often coexist pieces of entirely different origins.

One should question how well Igorrr actually knows how to master such a great variety of styles, and I certainly do not presume to know them all appropriately; but from my listening experience of Renaissance and Baroque music, heavy metal, and every type of experimental electronic music, and also from my experience as an amateur musician who is well aware of how difficult it is to make your stuff sound good, I can express an informed opinion: this gentleman is really good.

If I had to choose a couple of tracks that could exemplify Igorrr's style well, I would consider a pair (it seems they are precisely the tracks that Igorrr himself thought to distribute on video platforms, so that stray dogs like you and me can go listen to the things he does):

The second track 'ieuD' is a piece of exquisite super-apocalyptic post-baroque metal. It begins with a nice harmonic harpsichord turn on which a genius male voice (Laurent Lunoir) climbs in an atavistic grammelot, and then a great crescendo with blast beats that do "tupatupatupa!", up to the second exposition of the theme through the exquisite voice of Laure Le Prunenec, and then other sound implications in which the main theme is skillfully recalled at other intertwined periods until a finale that I do not intend, as the saying goes in these strange times, to spoil.

I would also mention 'Cheval', a divertissement for rock band and French accordion (masterfully played by Pierre Mussi), perhaps the closest thing here to a 'hit': the rhythm triplets waltzing in joy, the slapped bass, the furious growl/scream, the evil riffs, the choir: the playful chase of all these elements makes the scarce three minutes of this piece dramatically dense.

The pessimistic listener, exposed to the development of such an extreme creative method (and ultimately predictable for the listener, once the new methodological pidgin is assimilated and the initial shock is overcome), may wish to discern limits or intuit a destiny destined to run out: what else can Igorrr invent so that his future works allow him to continue to fulfill the role, oxymoronic and well-suited to him, of iconoclastic icon?

(These beautiful questions are well posed, but resolving the question can only be something that lies beyond the domain in which we are called to gather ourselves in the fulfillment of that exercise of wonder and dedication that is the contemplation of vibrational mysteries and their power, that is to say, staying cheerful and listening to some strange music. Therefore I will make sure not to pose these problems, and let's go alé!)

If some of the previous works could surprise more because of the novelty of the language used, Savage Sinusoid is a work that continues to convince, due to the quality of the production and the clarity of the artistic statement, perhaps even more 'straight to the point' than what has been done so far.

Released on Metal Blade in 2017, Savage Sinusoid is purchasable online!