Mad Creudo - Dijon

Released: May 22

Returning from a nearly decade long hiatus, Italian psychedelic rock duo Mad Creudo presents us with a collection of six tracks playfully titled Dijon. Most of the album is instrumental with Davide and Marco contributing their skills equally on guitar, bass, and keyboard with just a bit of vocals in for fleeting parts. For instance, on the very first track "Without the libraries" we start out with guitar based textures plucking around gently with a tone that is something like being underwater along with the playful laughs of a small child. But, like with all of the longer songs on this album, the parts never stay static as it quickly switches into a new motif. It is only near the end that we get our first bit of vocals, with both players singing in unison the words of "without the libraries, where I was supposed to read" as a small bit of vocal "doo, doo, doos" are hummed along in the background. 

The next three tracks are little more than short interludes into each other, with the longest at just under a minute. But if listen in sequential order, it almost feels as if these are all one song in three distinct parts ending with "Without the libraries pt. III." The vocals are completely absent in this rendition but it takes some of the same guitar based motifs and transforms them into something much more ambient in nature than previously heard. Long organ chords meld with straight and reversed guitar plucks and strums, creating this incredibly fluid atmosphere that feels thick all the way through, like a giant pot of melted sounds slowly being swirled around as it simmers slowly. 

The final track closes the album out with a return to some of those psychedelic twangs we heard in the beginning while maintaining the very ambient feel established by the previous track. The album is a bit short, but the structure is something that I found novel. The setting of three short tracks right in the middle of the runtime is a bold choice, but one that makes a great deal of sense in context. All in all, it is a rather enjoyable listen and a wonderful return for a band that saw such a long period of inactivity.