Do you remember the days before climate heating, the drain of the gulf stream and wet North European summers? These days are far behind, still I can recall memories of summer vacation at home, hot tar and long afternoons without anything to do at all. Skies oh-so blue, the horizon blurred with hot air I used to lay on the ambient-tempered asphalt in front of our house. Like a poikilothermal lizard my body felt like 45°. Now it's raining outside. But listening to the Neuf Meuf LP It's Cold In Space, a quite similar feeling comes above me.
Rok Vrbancic is a young fellow from Slovenia. His music is very dense, rich of melody and hidden under a beautiful shell of cracklings and noises from time to time. His instruments are mostly analogue (guitar, drums, field-recordings, fragments of voice) but the way he develops his songs he is closer to electronic- or ambient-music. There is a strange stumbling groove in most of his songs that suits the dirt-ridden, somehow unformed sound of the record very well- and it works out at first listen! Try "That Day" for instance. "Zul", "Banta Pudu III" or the 12-minutes masterpiece "Goldberry Dreamstream" are other examples for songs that simply suck you in with its huge melodies. Imagine a mixture between Dan Snaith, Kieran Hebden and Christian Fennesz. "Unrest Unsave" on the other side draws attention to the shadows that inevitable appear where there is sun. It features Sebastien Biset a.k.a. Sepia Hours whose own output between pop and experimentalism fits the Neuf Meuf-sound perfectly.
Like the sweet heat of a senseless summer-day used to slow me down back in the days, this record makes he stare outside the window and count the raindrops instead of doing something reasonable. But it feels good and if you can afford it, don't hesitate to use your players' repeat-function. It's cold in space, but this 50 minutes of music bring forth the warmth.