Elodie A. Roy discovers raw and strident sounds which take his adopted city of Montreal as its subject matter
Constellation
Released: 26.05.23
For many years now, French producer Joni Void (aka Johnny Ripper) has been concerned with the erasure of the self, the slow dislocation of the psyche, the relationship between the individual and the crowd.
His third album for Constellation takes his adoptive city of Montreal as its subject matter. It operates a graceful disintegration and re-composition of the streets – through hundreds of tape samples. There are raw, strident sounds – many of them filtered and unidentifiable – occasionally morphing into melodies. Layer upon layer, Void creates a crowded yet ghostly soundscape, obliterated by white noise and high pitches. He buries the city as much as he reveals it. We know he will never get to the core of it, but the point is elsewhere. EITS is a document of disappearance.