‘6 Fragments’ is the debut solo artist album from Arno Vancolen. Combining elements of indie rock grooves, avant-garde electronics and classical minimalism the album’s effortless grace draws upon decades of musical experience.

Arno Vancolen is a French musician based in Rouen who in his various post-punk guises has shared the stage with Michael Rother, Faust and Wire and produced several albums with his electronic rock group Steeple Remove for labels like Sordide Sentimental, 3rd Side Records, Fuzz Club and more.

Drawing from a background of industrial, noise, krautrock and post-punk his gravitation towards electronic music has seen him collaborate with Laurent Garnier and recently take part in the Code QR series of veiled various artist releases.

As a whole ‘6 Fragments’ is based on ambient drone sounds, driving, linear instrumentals and shimmering electronics which leave the rock / pop format for synthetic loops, enriched with guitars.

From the opening motorik groove of ‘Venus Loop Revisé’ Vancolen sucks you into his hypnotic vortex of refracted synths as they sparkle and twinkle across the unstoppable beat. ‘Itta’ straifs the electronic ether with delicate emotion, summoning the sounds of Brian Eno and ‘Dances’ brings forth the building, geometric, repetitive neo-classicism of Steve Reich. Tracks like ‘Saturn Studio’ and ‘Substance #2’ take their cues from his indie band past only this time with Kevin Shields and Silver Apples fighting over the steering wheel.

The refrained avant-garde piano of title track ‘6 Fragments’ gives contrast and space whilst ‘The Slab’ is a remorseful, neon-lit cinematic slo-mo waltz through the Paris Metro. With his multi-faceted sonic approach, the search for the ‘electric trance’ started many years ago seems to have come to an end.