Filax Staël – Traces 04_A Drift Through Time
«Traces 4, A Drift Through Time» by the Dutch project Filax Staël challenges our perception of music.
William S. Burroughs once said: «When you cut into the present, the future leaks out.» Referencing the cut-up technique to gain insights, the author even went as far as seeing it as a form of divination.
Decades later, the project «Section 10_Traces by Filax Staël» was founded in 2013 by Dutch artist and graphic designer Bas Mantel together with Okko Perekki—cutting further into the present with their audiovisual collages.
Traces, the upcoming collection by Filax Staël, marks their first official output, accompanied by a book. The 24 tracks only span over 26 minutes, again hinting at the fleeting nature of time itself.
Today, Filax Staël presents Traces 04_A Drift Through Time—not a singular track but a compilation of Blue Dances, A < > B, and A1 a1. We hear cut-and-pasted symphonies from the silent film era, fragmented electronica, intertwined with sound recordings of 1950s instructional films. Illustrated with Mantel's signature remixing, punkish graphic style.
Filax Staël comments:
«A Drift Through Time; Time as a vehicle, non linear, no end or beginning, remixing parallel universes ... with traces of sound, fragmented memories in language and form, audiovisual collaged dimensions in black and white, raw, shape shifting sounds ... Connections of lines; crossing and coalesce, lines as routes analogous to flight maps. These fragments of memories haunt time as the fusion between image and sound, in which they merge together into new forms and meaning. One in which the spectator can experience and to which he can individually give his meaning at that moment in time.»
Traces 04_A Drift Through Time not only defies any traditional definition of a song but also questions how we listen and find meaning in sound. It purposefully challenges us—and our perception of music.
No doubt: This composition is not something you casually play in the background. It needs your full attention, combined with the will for introspection, letting your mind wander away into uncharted territory.
