Viola ‎– Melancholydisco CD

Viola ‎– Melancholydisco CD

"Viola, who has become quite prolific, has replaced guitars and other so-called real instruments with machines, and a bottle of wine with candles on a disco ball and a flickering dance floor. Electronic Viola works like a cold turkey in detoxification treatment. The black-lipped gothic tones that characterized the previous production belong only to the amount of melancholy. Despite electric drums, samples and cassette synths, Viola still believes in heartbreaking romance. This time there are fewer The Cure influences and more Depeche Mode involved, however, without Dave Gahan’s self-destructive decadence.

The silver disc, which consists of four new and six remixes, begins with a new great Sad Eyed Disco Dancers song. The angular machining and synasound sounds borrowed from the 80s combine with the cool vocals of Riku and Anu. It is followed by Violent, originally released on a split with Iconcrash, from which Boys Of Scandinavia has made a working DFA-inspired hit for indie discos. Vapise LCD Soundsystem! The British-Finnish Roger duo’s vision of City Silhouette sounds like Pet Shop Boys in a pet cemetery, and Nostalgia Amnesia continues in the same mood, adding to the Kraftwerkian robotic aesthetics. Reconstructed by Kris Kylven, Deepspeed mixes an ambient soundscape with his electronics, and provides a suitable respite before the final slow. Jaani "Iconcrash" Peuhu's version of Three Minutes Later paints more slowly and minimalist to the accompaniment of a beautiful piano. Equipped with stronger vowels, the song would be reminiscent of Nine Inch Nails Broken. A slightly larger major song, Strange Delights, intersects New Order and The Knife. Verneri Lumi, formerly active on Sissy Spacek and now on Rinneradio, is revamping Kiss And Break Up, which in its experimentation takes the biggest leap from the original performance and other material on the album. The cracked Halo Goodbye, redesigned by Alien Mindbenders, is the closest to Viola's Escapist Pioneers and Tearcandy's familiar stuff based on traditional instruments. A beautiful song, as is the cinematic instrumental Dim Challenger that concludes the album - the last slow disco.

Without reading the author's information, you might not even notice when it's a remix by someone outside and when it's Viola's new song. Despite the drop in names performed above, the consistently high-quality remixes create an image of each other and with the new Viola songs as an intact whole rather than a fragmented collection. Planned for the new full-length interim work to be released in the fall, Melancholydisco is a full-fledged release that sounds even a little too trendy considering recent recycling. Bonarina's album features Ilai Rämä's video of Violentia's original version. Melancholydisco is a stylish package all the way to the lid." - Marko Ylitalo