CDR, self-released, 2005
ex.tension.free.fr
This young project from the North of France has produced a rather high quality debut album, the originality of which comes from containing only 2 tracks: “desert” (a long introspective piece lasting 31:51 minutes) and “journey” (6:08).
The first piece is a magnificent electro symphonic piece, which begins in a dark ambient, almost film soundtrack sounding manner, similar to early Black Lung, to take us towards the Canadian territories of Skinny Puppy or Noise Unit.
This long progression, torn by industrial flashes, synthetic sequences and hypnotic frequencies, produces a kind of mental catatonia, propitious to daydreaming. After five minutes, a tribal and jerked beat gives the clinical ambiance of the ensemble a frightening side which becomes more and more baroque. When the melody kicks in, around the tenth minute, the listener is already in absolute trance, the sound being directly influenced by the best works of Delerium or Juno Reactor.
With “Desert”, the two ‘laboratory assistants’ of Ex_Tension (PY Hohmann & Vince Cendrot) have succeeded in composing a kind of dark and mesmerizing music with a background of noisy sounds and a sense of sound depth and dynamics worthy of the greatest producers of electronica. One waits for furthers releases with pleasure.
[8/10]
— Pedro Peñas y Robles