MAAR, by Le Motel & Bruce Wijn

MAAR by Le Motel & Bruce Wijn, released 07 April 2023 1. La Perche 2. Niebla 3. Microcosmos 4. Nautilus 5. Captain Ahab 6. Seagulls 7. Blankenberge Le Motel and Bruce Wijn met at school, during a school art trip to Munich. They went separate ways for a long time. Hailing from Brussels, Le Motel’s world is a vortex of sight and sound that takes in the many and varied corners of the planet. As a music producer and film composer his versatility has taken him to festivals and clubs in every direction as naturally as he has ventured out to the less accessible areas of the globe as a field recordist. It’s somewhere in between these spaces that Le Motel operates, gathering unique experiences and sounds to channel through his studio. Bruce Wijn is a Brussels-based guitarist who played in several postrock kind projects such as Sound Film, 52 Commercial Road, or more shoegaze orientated Lazy Sin. These collaborations gave him the opportunity to perform in various locations in Belgium, France, England, and the USA. As a musician, his focus has always been attracted by progressively built rhythmic melodies, which would eventually turn into long reverberated or distorted swells, or the other way round. All these experiences brought them both to the idea of scoring movies with different yet similar approaches. That’s how their first collaboration happened as Le Motel was working on the soundtrack of the movie 'Binti' and invited Bruce Wijn for the track Exode, in 2018. Since then, they’ve been working on other scoring projects, such as the feature film ‘Aller Retour’ more recently. Alongside the movie scoring activities another audiovisual live project was born, in collaboration with Antoine de Schuyter and his mesmerizing images. This one is more focusing on tape textures, field recordings and glitchy effects in order to build atmospheric tracks that they decided to bring together in a first album ‘MAAR’. The album is elaborated as a soundtrack for an imaginary journey between cold seas and volcanoes explorations. From the first echoing sounds of playing kids on the shoreside in the opening track ‘La Perche’ Le Motel & Bruce Wijn let you slide in a technicolor dreamworld, reverbing slowly innocent childhood memories into a chilled ,out of range, future. ‘MAAR’ dives deep into a kaleidoscopic microcosmos watching Nautilus playing hide and seek with ‘Captain Ahab’ floating on sonic breaking waves, while seagulls gently spread their wings, flying through the breezy and misty clouds of Blankenberge. Lava vulcanica slowly melts in the sad euphoria of the cold North Sea, crystallizing sounds only Le Motel and Bruce Wijn can deliver. Waterproof & heat resistant vintage seventies reel to reel tape wizardry. Infused with technicolor electronics for a bright careless sonic future.