«No-Eyed Deer» is the debut recorded free-improvised and twisted kind of Chansonoise collaboration of the duo of German double bass player and multi-instrumentalist David Helm (aka the songwriter Marek Johnson) and French Fender Rhodes wizard Jozef Dumoulin, recorded at the Loft club in Cologne in April 2021. Over the years, both Helm and Dumoulin have used all sorts of electronic devices to convert their instruments into otherworldly cyborgs, employed here to create strange and wonderful sonic universes. «No-Eyed Deer» offers a new logic of futuristic structures or violent yet fragile sound textures that grow into a deep trance state.

Helm asks in his liner notes what does it mean actually to follow your dreams? «Are those dreams set in stone or are they ever-changing? What are the sacrifices you are willing to make on the way?» One answer he got out of this collaboration and the working process with Dumoulin is that change is inevitable. Often, their sonic dreams are translated into noisy textures coming out of the brains of Philip K. Dick’s imaginary androids. But these dramatic and nervous yet nuanced androids’ dreams are not necessarily about sheep or no-eyed deer but are quite abstract and suggestive. Like a soundtrack for a futurist sci-fi film.

Helm and Dumoulin operate as one sonic entity and sound is if they are determined to disrupt these dense and layered textures with subversive sounds as if these sounds would instigate a liberation of the body and souls of both humans and androids. Or just as Helm suggests, these untimely, ever-changing and pattern-free, intriguing textures capture the essence of the art of Helm and Dumoulin: change in ourselves can be the most fulfilling and liberating thing if there’s a loving element involved.

Eyal Hareuveni

David Helm (v, g, elec, b, obj), Jozef Dumoulin (Rhodes, p, elec)