Before you start listening, answer this: what associations do you have with a band name like VLNA?
Personally, I prepared for somewhat ‘unpersonal’ and possibly even ‘harsh’ sounds when I started listening.
But I was in for a surprise:“Turquoise Threads“ is an ‘impressionist vocal’ album – an album with spoken words fragments, humming, whistling, intertwining with ‘a thick veil of atmospheric noir from threads of adapted violins, guitar’ (and electronic treatments).
VLNA are an unknown duo: two anonymous artists (at least one of them female) that have been recording music since 2008 via online file transfer (and haven’t met until years later).
“The concept behind this work is sound-exchange and a record that could be made by any two people who had never met before in person, but communicating through different channels and producing sound as pieces of information sent back and forth. It sounds like a stream, a flux of sounds going from one end to another.”
In this day and age, the on-line exchange is a well-known way of collaborative music-making. But I doubt if this album really could have been made by ‘ANY two people who had never met before’: these two unknown (?) artists clearly share their vision on what their music should sound like.
Apart from the opening track on the “Earthtones” compilation, this is VLNA‘s debut.
With a playing time of 25 minutes, it’s relatively short, but it’s impressive enough to hope there will be more like this in the future.