21 tracks album, 140’
Limited edition 2 x CDs, screen printed digipack
Written, recorded and mixed by Heather Celeste
Mastered by AVGVST
Artwork by Myriam Barchechat
© 2015, Lentonia Records and Anywave
In August 2014, Heather Celeste fired her voice deep into compositions with a mix of drums and deformed and resampled analog sounds. She has undertaken a wild creative process, releasing masses of dark music monuments which perch over techno, coldwave, minimalism quarrel and dub digital.
Modern Death consits of minimalist hallucinations, separated in space but strung tight with tension. From a complex rhythmic skeleton, Heather develops evolving textures and lyrics, filling out the narrative arcs. Listening, we dive into streams of consciousness, guided by her distant voice—between singspeak and ethereal singing—which rises over whirlwinds of arpeggiators, wisps of disturbing basses, disrupted by extreme percussions.
Heather is fed by the futurology of Ray Kurzweil, New York video art of the 60s and 70s, passionate about design and architecture. She observes the modern world, cross-references Descartes, quantum physics, psychoanalysis, and formulates her hypotheses in the form of song.
Reviews:
“It’s airy but harsh which – rather like a good brutalist building – is something Celeste does well: she’s able to conjugate metallic textures with a certain glamour”
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Techno Cadeau (Interview)
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“Just turn up the volume, and the music will do the rest.”
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“an authentic jewel in which the recursivity, the variation, the squared rhythms and minimalism are the main elements of her formula. At this moment, there is nothing left to do than to begin the journey, trying not to lose ourselves.”
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“C'est qui la patronne ?. C'est par cette simple phrase que nous highlitions Helena Hauff la semaine passée. Elle s'avère tout aussi valable pour Heather Celeste, nouvelle prêtresse américaine de la post-techno psyché”
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“Entre ambient délavé, cold wave des glaces et techno fantômatique, les tunnels de réverb' de Modern Death procurent la sensation de se trouver dans un rêve lucide sans fin. Déployant sa bizarrerie dans un étirement de sonorités industrielles et avec un beat souvent minimaliste, ces attributs ont la particularité d'accroître cette impression d'hypnose enveloppante.”
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“Celeste's music has a beautifully dark, hypnotic quality that finds a place in between lush ambient, minimal synth and even pulsating techno. We are especially drawn to her soft, whispering vocals that seduce the listener as the song slowly burns.”
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Trax
“Vingt-et-un morceaux, près de deux heures durant lesquelles la techno donne un sens à la synth-music de 2015 : l’album de l'américaine Heather Celeste est un Léviathan tittanesque et noir qui devrait plonger les fans de Hauff, Canterel et autres machinistes modernes dans les eaux troubles d’une folie contemporaines.”
