Niedowierzanie – Lumière
1.29.18 by Ryan Masteller

Can you believe what you’re hearing? Because I can’t, and I’m the one doing all the heavy lifting with this whole “music criticism” thing. Don’t think it’s not a burden, because it is. A massive, massive burden.

Niedowierzanie, a word which I’m copying and pasting from now on, is the musical nom de plume (or de guerre if there’s battle involved, and I’m not sure there’s not) of Léo Maury of France, and he’s been around for a while now doing his thing – a quick check comes up with twelve years. (Gosh, 2006 seems like forever ago.) Literally meaning “disbelief” (see what I did there?), Niedowierzanie does what not many people really know how to do very well: marry the interstellar awe of a really good synthesizer with the pulsing rhythms of a sci-fi action sequence. I can count on one hand the artists who are also really good at that: John Carpenter and Yves Malone, and Yves is pretty much John Carpenter for the twenty-first century (and this is not a slight). Niedowierzanie fits right in with these two loonballs, and “Lumière” is a master class in this type of composition. (Or, uh, I dunno, maybe it’s a week at night school? I honestly don’t know if you need a master’s degree or not for this.)

“Lumière” shines itself into dark crevasses and corners, a beacon of neon in a twisted, violent world. Whether Maury’s walking through the city streets at night or chilling with Mulder and Scully on the wrong side of a chain link fence, he’s got the mood under such control that considering any other option is just stupid. I can’t believe I’m saying this, but Niedowierzanie may have just jumped to the top of my Halloween party playlist for next year. And no, we don’t DO the “Monster Mash.”

Creepy crawl all the way over to the Lighten Up Sounds and buy one of the seventy tapes that are for sale, if you dare.