The Dutchman Michel Banabila has already tucked away falling water drops, softly tapped percussion instruments and indecipherable vocal snippets under thin, tinkling sounds when your favourite record store probably still had its New Age section in the back corner. When you have to click »Next« six times on his Discogs page to get to the end of the discography, you’re talking about a musician who doesn’t have much left to prove. On the experimental label Knekelhuis, the »veteran« (as you can see, it’s still European Championship season while I’m writing this) honours us for the second time with new music.
Even after more than four decades in the game, Michel Banabila remains restless and curious. Compared to earlier albums, »Unspeakable Visions« is also a little more time-consuming and quicker to the point. This isn’t music that revolves around itself and rests on its laurels. Instead Banabila sends his ambient and fourth world slow burners on a journey of discovery, committed to manipulated and distorted voices for abstract sound art that has something to tell us, something we would never understand. With rhythmically ambitious songs like »So Far Yet So Near« he doesn’t even shy away from a very subtle glance at the dancefloor.
