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MH-251 Loden - Valeen Hope  Valeen Hope, Loden’s first full-length release, is a collection of singularly beautiful shoegaze inspired electronic work. Across twelve compositions, rays of early ‘90s pop melody shimmer through layers of deconstructed beats and oceans of ambient synth noise. Valeen Hope’s majestic sheaths of sound have drawn comparisons to contemporary artists like M83 and Air, and even the mighty My Bloody Valentine, making it feel strangely familiar yet completely fresh. Written as he was traveling between Holland and his native Belgium, Loden deals in emotions often suppressed in beat-driven music; digital sounds are skillfully manipulated to convey feelings of longing or discovery. Valeen Hope is a stunningly mature album from a talented young producer. |
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| Reviews Summary |
| It hisses and crackles with a singular, burning instensity - The Wire / Mush has just unleashed a one-man production machine - XLR8R / There are plenty of highlights on this excellent debut album - Holland Rocks / Will call the listener back again and again – Igloo |
| Reviews | |
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| Jolan Koks, the Hilversum, Netherlands, producer who does business as Loden, is in his mid-20s—in other words, young enough for ’90s driftronica to be a golden age, recalled through a golden scrim like a porch screen-door. Valeen Hope plays like a simultaneous love letter to Boards Of Canada, Flying Saucer Attack and early Warp Records compilations, with “Ideal Skies,” its penultimate number, triangulating those three pretty thoroughly into vocal-less meteorological dream-pop with an agreeably plangent melody that emerges two-thirds of the way into the piece, sounding like a descendant from a long-since-discontinued IBM product line. There is also much synth-mist, or maybe it’s guitar-as-synth-mist. It’s quite pretty either way. - Paper Thin Walls |
