Before this CD, all the releases I knew from empreintes DIGITALes were very complex and difficult works of musique concrète and electroaccoustic. That is to say, they were clearly more a music for people who are actually studying this genre than for the rest of the world. …dans le silence de la nuit… is, to the contrary, a more accessible work, on which fans of industrial music can have more grip.

And, briefly said, these four tracks are a combination of dark soundscapes made of fields recordings, outbursts of noises and spoken words in French (with readings of Du coté de chez Swann and The time machine). As far as the music is concerned, this work doesn’t have the complexity and opacity of musique concrète, and sounds more like muffled and cut up recordings of footsteps, winds and ambiences, meshed into a rumbling light noise. In fact, the recording is often extremely light, causing you to crank up your stereo quite loud, before getting your ear blasted by some very dynamic and unexpected loud sample.

Very atmospheric and dream inducing, this work has enough coherency and consistency to be really enjoyed as a whole, and doesn’t lose his listener to much. The texture it uses are interesting and relatively close to sounds commonly used in dark ambient and industrial music. However, a very strong point of this CD is, as always with empreintes DIGITALes, a very good recording quality, with a dynamic and cristal clear sound.

Still very academic, but really close to what’s been done by some dark ambient projects, …dans le silence de la nuit… is easily the most enjoyable, cinematic and listener-friendly CD I have heard from this label. Nice.