Masomenos – Balloons

Written by Manu Ekanayake

Off-beat house -

Some albums you love because you see exactly where they’re going, others you love because their path baffles you, even though you really want to know where they’re going to end up. Masomenos’ Balloons is one of the latter.

Who says all music should be linear? That it should all follow a prescribed path? Even in a scene like dance music that has such a love of repetition, there’s always room for the weirder, the odder, the more interesting album. Or at least there should be.  After all, all the best music started out as tunes nobody would play, until everybody played them. Sometimes you have to dare to be different.

But fear not, this isn’t some self-indulgent electronica artist’s latest vanity project. It is, instead, a fine piece of lush, expressive house music that also manages to fold in some divine oddness from the Masomenos duo Joan Costes (the DJ, but also a graphic designer) and Adrien de Maublanc (producer and Art Director).

The duo’s background in the visual arts (Masemenos is multimedia project, the music being just the most popular strand) probably explains the varied nature of their album. For example,  on Track 3’s Coco Classico starts off as a warm, undulating deep houser with wonderful ‘clapping’ FX but then segues into a classical piece, which is nothing if not surprising.  But it still does the job – and is something we can imagine Ricardo Villalobos having the nerve to play to great effect.

Then later on Track 5 HaHaHa / Moody Moon there’s another meeting of moods, with a clearly humourous number turning into a much moodier affair, the tempo change reflected by the way the titles overlap in the tracklist. This occurs throughout the album, which showcases Masemenos intention to create an album that works together as a whole. And despite the many competing elements – or perhaps because of them – the French duo has succeeded.  

Rating: 8.5/10
Label: Welcome To Masomenos
Release date: October 25th, 2010

Tracklisting:
1. Sansula / El Toucan
2.El Toucan/ Coco
3. Coco Classico
4. La Porte Sonne/ Hahaha
5. Hahaha/ Moody Moon
6. Moody Moon/ Sone
7. Moody Moon/ Chili Con Chanme
8. Chili Con Chanme/ 8 Ball
9. 8 Ball/ Amor Amores
10. Lil'm (Feat . Ilhem)