Mondkopf is a French artist with a German name, which is fitting, given how often his productions play in a middle ground between those two countries' archetypal modes of electronic music. Looked at a certain way, Rising Doom, the 24-year old's latest full-length and first for Fool House, the label imprint of French fashion/mp3 blog Fluokids, borrows the machine muscle of harsh Teutonic techno and leavens it with just a bit of the joviality and melody of French touch.
Of course, genre divides don't break down cleanly along national lines. German and French electronic music have long been in close conversation-- especially in recent years, with crossover acts like Digitalism or the Ed Banger roster frequently blurring the lines, or with UK dubstep usurping the conversation altogether. And while Rising Doom is no more dubstep than it is minimal or filter house, it might actually be British bass music's mutations that make the single largest mark on the album.
This is most apparent in terms of overall mood. From the name Rising Doom to track titles that sound like weightier Dr. Who episodes ("Where the Gods Fall", "The Song of Shadows", "Day of Anger") on down to the creeping stereo synths and stalking drum-machine beats, the album is permeated by the kind of ominousness and menace that is increasingly the currency of dubstep as it goes teenage testosteroned and mainstream. Which would grate or bore if it weren't also so meticulously sculpted.
Rising Doom is full of the kind of 3-D sound design, melodramatic melodic arcs, and chest-thumping bass beats that might make Mondkopf's closest peers in terms of pure sonics the German duo Modeselektor, especially on songs like the staticky, synth-sawing "Day of Anger", although its classical-sounding piano bookends recall something else entirely. Other audio-engineering showpieces include the muffled haunted-house organs and big-room shuffle of "Deadwood", or "Where the Gods Fall", which-- with its lurching rhythm, shushing, shrill-as-hell hi-hat slicing, and mid-frequency rave synths stabbing in the background-- might be the closest thing here to a proper dubstep track.
This stuff can turn ponderous, though, as on the nine-minute-long closer "Fossil Lights", a half-time fade-out which strains for the sort of cinematic epic of an M83 coda but ends up feeling incidental. He sometimes succumbs to this sort of well-crafted sound for its own sake, rather than in the service of either a memorable song or a physically functional track.
