rifo | betel @ freq (uk)

Visual artist and sound sculptor Jean Francois Riffaud has taken his RIFO alter ego on a guitar odyssey hanging primarily on tonal repetition and hypnotic rhythmic interaction. Running through five inter-related pieces that spur one another on like an enthusiastic relay team, the guitar on Betel is treated with anything but reverence and at times is barely recognisable.

The utterly basic hypnotic rhythm that prepares us for departure is like a slow helicopter with just the hint of a sparkle in the background. It runs wit the very basest of instincts and move slightly in and out of phase. His idea of a sound sculpture is assimilated here, something monolithic and simple but that has the illusion of movement, drawing closer and changing position.

At points the guitar sends reminders to you of its general structure and form, a primitive, distorted sensation that speaks of decay and antiquity. As things move on, so it becomes less incantatory and silence blossoms between the notes. Having drawn you in, it now settles you down, but its ghostliness begins to lose form and grows more static, more deliberate; a loop of awkward, blunt notes that disorientate the listener surrounding them with what sounds like a previously undiscovered frog chorus, intensely alive but hidden.

Offset metronomes spring to mind at points, but as an aural sculpture it is in constant motion with its simplicity of form belying its ability to draw you in. Sounds diverge each time and you think you are ready for the next logical step, but often there is harsh juxtaposition that surprises. Strings bark like dogs or a saw deep in the forest; rather unwelcoming, changing the mood for something darker and leaving a long distance travelled from the simple opening.

A didgeridoo-like sound descends into the abyss as feedback grows distant moving into the final coda which is strangely sparse and utterly unrecognisable from the setting off point. The violin-like comedown melancholy that drops you off at the end after the intense burst of hyperactivity preceding it is a bit of a balm that leaves you feeling a little more prepared for re-immersion into life.

If you are looking for a guitar album that is unlike any other, Betel could be for you. One musician’s idiosyncratic approach makes for something immersive and quite daring.