- A dance music lifer returns in top form with some of the best gritty, but cheeky electro of his career.
- Across his nearly three-decade career, Joan-Maël Péneau, better known as Maëlstrom, has played a number of different roles. In the mid-90s, he started his rave education on the free party circuit. These parties, held for days on end in fields across France, were thrown by hardcore enthusiasts like Spiral Tribe, who left the UK for Western and Eastern Europe after the crackdown on the rave scene in the UK.
Péneau's first records from the late '90s are products of that scene—he put out acidic techno before working his way into sample-heavy breaks. By the time he launched the label RAAR in the mid '10s with longtime collaborator Louisahhh!!!, he had settled into a gritty take on contemporary techno and electro. The vortex of stuttering 808s and eerie melodies on his 2018 debut album, Her Empty Eyes, sat right at home with the EBM-inflected electro and techno that was being popularized by the likes of DJ Stingray and Helena Hauff midway through the '10s. At the time, Péneau's music was defined as much by negative space as it was whiplashing drums.
If that record completed the first act of Péneau's career, in his second, he's become a respected scene veteran and advocate for financial equity and transparency. Alongside the likes of DVS1 and Elijah, he's been outspoken about creating a more equitable and sustainable dance music economy. This has taken a variety of different guises. During the NFT-boom, he experimented with how blockchain technologies might be able to redistribute music back to producers. His 2021 album, Rhizome, used the concept of "interdependence" (a theory that has migrated into electronic music largely via Holly Herndon and Mat Dryhurst) as its basis. When an artist transitions into an academic, there can be a tendency to drivel on about the ideas while the actual art gets lost in the wash. But his latest LP is a refined marriage of the conceptual and the functional.
The FM Tapes was written as a tribute to the Yamaha DX7—the original synthesizer to use glassy, FM synthesis that has gone out of style since its '80s heyday (think the melodramatic chords on Tina Turner's "What's Love Got to Do With It" or the wintry chill of Berlin's "Take My Breath Away"). Here, Péneau reimagines its possibilities by turning out tunes as nostalgic as they are futuristic. "Suede," for example, scans like a vintage piece of '80s robot funk: a subzero arpeggio sidesteps crackly 808s, but the song still radiates warmth as the pads glow low in the mix. These tunes capture Péneau at full club velocity, but also reveal a particularly nimble producer.
The FM Tapes lands on Central Processing Unit, the Sheffield home of all things bleepy, electro and wonky. Péneau's debut on the label back in 2017 showcased his unique take on electro: the 808s were fiery and recorded in the red, while the melodies had little pockets of wanderlust. His return to the label is familiar—there's plenty of gritty and blown-out low-ends—but also shows him working with more airy and luminous sound design. "The Operator" opens with spacious and chuggy drum programming and soft piano plunks. But as the song gathers momentum, a tightly-wound arpeggio careens through, leaving nothing in its wake like a whirling Tasmanian Devil. Péneau drops the tempo from the whiplash 140 of "The Operator" to a 120 swagger on "Target003," but there is still an interplay between the visceral and the ethereal, as prickly synth icicles pierce the booty-shaking 808s and undulating second-wave Detroit chords.
What's most impressive about The FM Tapes is how futuristic the DX7 still sounds. Working with fellow French producer Fasme on "Res 06," Péneau explores IDM, taking out all the cold of the DX7 as harp-esque bleeps unfurl patiently like the slow drip of Sunday morning coffee. It's a track that you might hear on a hipster home of experimental club music like Nous'Klaer Audio. Péneau reprises this melodic daintiness on "Upside Down DX7," where breakneck synth work and feedback waves build into a central melody that hits like the gravity-free techno of a producer like Barker (even with the occasional muted kick drum). Péneau has put out over 50 records in his career, but on The FM Tapes, he proves he's still got fresh ideas. Across some of his best electro tracks ever, he's coaxing new sounds out of old machines.
Tracklist01. Ondes Courtes
02. Alt50ser
03. La Vie Sociale Des
04. My Digitone
05. Res 06 feat. Fasme
06. Suede
07. Target003
08. The Operator
09. Trempo feat. Fasme
10. Upside Down DX7
11. Algo Tango