Exposé Online banner

Exposé Online

Not just outside the box, but denying the existence of boxes.
Covering music from the fringes since 1993.

Reviews

We Stood Like Kings — Away
(Kapitän Platte Kutter 065, 2022, CD / LP / DL)

by Jon Davis, Published 2024-07-17

Away Cover art

Belgium’s We Stood Like Kings has taken the goal of creating “cinematic” music very literally. They started their career with soundtracks to two silent films, Berlin: Symphony of a Great City (1927) and A Sixth Part of the World (1926), with special commendations for choosing obscure titles rather than something like Metropolis or The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (not to say that those haven’t resulted in some good music). They then produced an alternate soundtrack to Koyaanisqatsi (1982), which was originally released with a famous score by Philip Glass. Their fourth album was Classical Re:Works, a diversion into adapting Classical music for their group format. Now with Away, they return to film music, creating an alternative soundtrack to the 2019 animated film by Latvian filmmaker Gints Zilbalodis. The film has no dialog, and the original music was composed and performed by Zilbalodis himself. Just looking at the timing of this album, it’s not a full soundtrack — you can’t just start the film and the album at the same time and expect them to match up scene by scene — so it would be challenging to actually create the whole experience. Imagination is required here, and the music can certainly be enjoyed even if you’re unfamiliar with the movie. Freed from its visual cotext, the music could broadly be called post-rock, though it has more sonic variety than some of the genre’s bands. As usual, the piano of Judith Hoorens is quite prominent, along with her other keyboards, and guitarist Diego di Vito gets plenty of opportunities to contribute dramatic tremolo melodies as well as some rapid, almost Crimson-like motifs. The rhythm section of Colin Delloye (bass) and Lucas Vanderputten (drums) deftly provide thunderous backing when it’s called for, but also sensitive ambience in the quieter sections. I’d love to be able to experience the movie with this soundtrack, but failing that, it’s an excellent work on its own.

Filed under: New releases, 2022 releases

Related artist(s): We Stood Like Kings, Judith Hoorens (La Reine Seule)

More info
http://wslk.bandcamp.com/album/away

 

What's new

These are the most recent changes made to artists, releases, and articles.