Making Sense Of ∞. Stef Kamil Carlens

Is Zita Swoon no more? Stef Kamil Carlens is on his own and releases his second solo record. 25 Years after the debut album of dEUS and 24 after Moondog Jr's, the world is a difference place and so is the music of Carlens, just like his singing is. The other side is that my ears and mind are different as well, having been educated by the likes of 'The Ideal Crash' and 'A Band In A Box' to mention two examples from the past 20 years.

The result is Making Sense Of ∞ or infinity it is written. A lopsided 8 can be walked infinitely for sure, so okay. Despite my ears being trained, I would say this album is more down to earth and smoother than ever before. Stef Kamil Carlens' voice remains fairly strange but has aged in a pleasant way. When used like on this album it becomes a near normal voice as well. All this normalcy could have led to an album without any interesting bits or the under the skin sort of tensions. Well, believe me, it hasn't.

Carlens knows how to write a good song and how to deliver it in a way that makes it exciting to listen to. 'The Government Is No Game' is a song where the tension simply seeps from my speakers. Not much seems to happen at first, yet slowly but surely the song gets more funky and more direct in the way it addresses the listener. Carlens' voice creeps up on the listener and delivers his messages and conspiracies on governments and the likes. The tension building all the time to be released by the abrupt ending to a song that seems not to end.

Photo: Charlie de Keersmaecker

What sets Making Sense Of ∞ apart from Zita Swoon albums is the more down to earth approach to the songs. I call drummer Aarich Jespers a mathematician. Looking at him I see a mathematical precision in his approach to making his music, determining the sound and rhythm of Zita Swoon in a very specific way. Not that it is completely absent on this album, but the mood is in one way too relaxed to be so extremely precise.

Delving into the album shows that what at superficial listening appears to be relaxed easy going listening, changes when listening more intensely. Go past the joyful harmonies on the album and you will notice a kind of tension in the music. Just like life itself. We live our every day lives while major developments go on in the background, slowly but surely, near impossible to grasp the consequences of as we cannot see them clearly in the here and now. So we all just live on. This is the best way to describe the music on Making Sense of ∞.

With that Stef Kamil Carlens presents a beautiful new album with trainloads of discoveries to make, including new developments and influences in his music. If one other name needs mentioning, it is David Bowie. His ghost wanders around the album in some places. All in all this album is a tell-tale sign of a great artist who has not let himself be caught in the trick he was good at, at first. So enjoy this beautiful new album.

Wo.


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