Diorama – Tiny Missing Fragments (Album – Accession Records)
Genre/Influences: Electro-Pop, Dark-Popk, Dark-Wave.
Format: Digital, CD.
Background/Info: Diorama is now active for twenty four years and this new opus is the band’s tenth album. The songs were written and recorded over the past four years. Torben Wendt and Felix Marc both remain the artistic force and creative spirit of the band completed by Zura Nakamura playing guitar and drummer Markus ‘Marquess’.
Content: Defining this album as Electro-Pop would be wrong, but it has been always difficult to define Diorama’s sound! The new album doesn’t sound that different and yet I get the feeling there’s a clear evolution towards something ‘new’. The songs for sure have something ‘poppy’ because of the carrying and elevating choruses. It also has this typical taste of melancholia, which we are also used to hearing when listening to Electro-pop, but Diorama always has had something of their own. That’s exactly what this new opus illustrates. It’s all about the sound treatments and the distance they take with the copyists of 80s synth-pop. The songs are filled with emotions, refined with delicate arrangements, sometimes accomplished with minimalism –which is probably one of the innovating aspects and once again carried by the charisma of their singer Torben Wendt.
+ + + : Everyone has to make up its mind to say if this album is Diorama’s best one or not, but it definitely is my favorite one. Diorama strikes back with ‘new’ –or refreshed ideas, which are mainly coming through in the impressive and explicit Electronic sound treatments, but still in a subtle, Minimalistic taste running through a few cuts. The album also is diversified and that’s an exciting element, but also because this formation feels comfortable dealing with different angles of Electronic music sometimes reinforced by guitar playing. From the well-crafted opening song “Avatars” carried by an elevating chorus to the more Funky “Patchwork” to the Minimalism of “Horizons” to the beautiful melancholia showed at “Gasoline” to the danceable “Charles De Gaulle” to the somewhat bombastic “iisland” to an emotional final part featuring “Sensation”, “Minimum” and “Orbitalia” this work takes you in its grip from start till the end.
– – – : There’s only one song that left me unmoved and that’s “Dark Pitch”, which is more a kind of break.
Conclusion: Diorama has always been a creative and artistic ambassador of the Electro-underground scene, but “Tiny Missing Fragments” also reveals a band striving for innovation and walking on new paths.
Best songs: “Avatars”, “iisland”, “Patchwork”, “The Minimum”, “Charles De Gaulle”.
Rate: (9).
Artist: www.diorama-music.com / www.facebook.com/dioramawastaken
Label: www.accession-records.de / www.facebook.com/accessionrecords
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