“Compedium: Collected Singles and Remixes” compiles the six tracks recorded by Celer and Machinefabriek for their trilogy of 7″ singles which were self-released throughout 2012. It also includes one new track and a series of remixes by Stephan Mathieu, Sylvain Chauveau, and Nicolas Bernier. This album is almost tailor-made to be experienced upon first rise in the AM, or when a 50 minute reboot beckons.
Celer and Machinefabriek’s collaborations are highly ambient; there is barely a pulse anywhere in their collected works. Most of the tracks feature prolonged, alluring swells that seem to prescribe evenness and harmony with just a delicate touch of tension from time-to-time. All of the trilogy tracks blend well together in both sequence and timbre. Some compositions — notably ‘Penarie’ with its ominous, sweeping, low-end distortion — billow within the first 90 seconds, percolate in their discord, and finally arrive at their well-timed beauty.
Conversely, the long additional track ‘In/Out’ deep-dives into ambient bliss straightaway, then slowly transcends into an alluring, splendidly-phased distortion. It accomplishes a great deal in just under 3 minutes, and sounds complete. As for the remixes, I did not notice significant deviance from the source material, though two of them (Chauveau’s remix of ‘Sou’ and Bernier’s remix of ‘Mt. Mitake’) have an edginess that suggests the separation process has begun.
Though it is a collection of works, “Compendium” is well-integrated, focused, and worthy of front-to-back consideration.