J.Doursou

After a series of releases under the name MY.HEAD, ranging from the longform ‘Catharsis’ to several singles, albums and EPs, ‘Choreographies of Decay’ is J.Doursou’s first album released under his name. Like American Dreams labelmate claire rousay on her album a softer focus, he incorporates field recordings into ‘Choreographies of Decay’, but where rousay’s field recordings traffic in intimacy, connecting a constellation of shared moments, Doursou’s hearken to a world without. His album draws from texts that imagine dystopian futures or supernatural events and philosophy ranging from the existentialist to the post-structural. The album’s goal is to provide “a soundtrack to the moment,” excavated from the crises enmeshed within the COVID-19 pandemic. 
 The result is a dark, dense work, integrating a wide range of acoustic and electronic elements. Opening track “buildings will become their tombstones” foregrounds muted sheets of sound, evoking dial tones and the trappings of everyday life; meanwhile, “weeping idols” mixes an insistent synthesizer motif with a distant choir, first evoking sirens, then the hissing curvature of computer noise. “Jonas” is a microcosm of the album, mixing the incidental and diegetic: a slow, dampened piano riff interrupted by abrasive synth churns and ghostly choral suggestions. Here the music is sufficiently immersive to suggest that listeners are but a collection of characters in Doursou’s game, dancers in his dance.