Blurring dream chronicles A Martin Rev album is always an unpredictable surprise. The 2003 work "To Live", for example, astonished with its first use of gruff guitars instead of synthesizer compositions, and even when Rev returns to his dream-haunted melodic miniatures on the follow-up album "Les Nymphes" from 2008, the record is even more radical in its consistency. If Martin Rev's oeuvre was mostly characterized by a thoroughly minimalist approach, the pieces on "Les Nymphes" make an almost opulent, exuberant impression in comparison. Already after the first few seconds of the opener "Sophie Eagle", one has the impression that a huge sound wave of overlapping echo loops, rhythm loops and phase shifts, on which melodic fragments and Rev's sporadically appearing scraps of voices float like whitecaps, would wash you away. Also the references to be located in the contemporary club music, which first hinted at on the predecessor "To Live", find their continuation here. So you can hear on "Triton" and the title track "Les Nymphes Et La Mer" also those, due to their harshness partly strange seeming guitar samples again, which dominated the previous album. All other tracks on "Les Nymphes", however, are primarily characterized by a supercooled, dreamlike slow rave and post-industiral atmosphere, which in their three-dimensional broadband sonority are sometimes reminiscent of works by Coil. "The similarities of "Les Nymphes" to house and dance were obvious, of course, although I wasn't specifically looking for them. It was probably the first work I completed from start to finish on the computer. Many of the tracks were created digitally from interactive programs rather than outboard gear. The atmosphere and sound were inspired by a lot of reading in Greek mythology as well as studying the same stories in different languages. Probably my stay in Montreal for several years was a strong influence, as it is a French-speaking environment and there is a large selection of classical literature in French and other languages in all bookstores," says Martin Rev. Especially that inspiration, which is fed by cultural mythologies and becomes on "Les Nymphes" a dream chronicle, blurring all realities, makes the album so attractive. One sometimes wonders how an ethereal house or techno album would sound under Rev's direction. Once again, this work proves the uncompromisingness with which Martin Rev works and his willingness to always take risks under the consistent refusal to work on just one aesthetic alone. "Les Nymphes" is unquestionably the album of an artist who is always searching.