Sketching an intriguing trajectory, but in keeping with these times of shifts and multiple visions, Milan Warmoeskersen arrives at ZDB at a moment of revelation and maturity with the more or less recent release of ‘Leave Another Day’ on the STROOM label. Not that there wasn’t already a lot of value in what the Belgian artist had been doing before this decisive step, between his presence in bands like Mittland Och Leo or Beach, adventures under the pseudonym Crumar Young and three fascinating albums under his (almost) own name. On this path, which began in 2016 with ‘Intact’, he polished an electronic sound that started from a stream left open by the more pastoral side of Warp and its transmutation into the cloudier moments of Ghost Box and meditations on synthesisers by fellow countrymen such as Lieven Martens on that inaugural album, refined two years later with ‘Envelope’ and taking on a life of its own in the impressionism of ‘In Bloom’.
Four years on, Milan W. reappears with an unexpected primer of aching, dreamy songs in the form of ‘Leave Another Day’. It’s true that some of the passages from ‘In Bloom’ pointed to the mystery of Coil instrumentals and are continued here in context in songs such as ‘Interlude’, ‘Wanda’ or ‘Blue Heron’, but nothing would exactly lead us to expect the languor of an album where despair, resigned melancholy and that vague glimmer of hope after a break-up spread through songs made up of acoustic guitars, fluid bass lines, enveloping synthesisers and gliding chamber music arrangements. Devoid of a certain 80s autumnal nostalgia, illuminated by the Cocteau Twins’ “Treasure” chandelier – “Ballad” or “I Wait” -, by the Maurice Deebanks-era Felt guitar licks of “All the Way” or by the delicate and sumptuous arrangements of “Wrong One” and supporting a baritone voice pulled out of bed amidst the fog. Somewhat baroque dream pop, avoiding passé derivations of the most innocuous shoegaze, full of emotion that reveals itself in its own time. Masterful. B
