Simple, yet effective idea by Frans De Waard, who let his daughter Elise (note the title’s anagram of her name) play with “sheets of metal, paper, sticks, plastic and other junk” on which he placed contact microphones, then elaborated the resulting sounds via computer translating them into a 10-part electroacoustic performance. Elise’s voice opens and closes the record (I particularly love the end, the tiny lady singing “toot toot” with her voice slightly deformed by De Waard’s software) but there are several noteworthy moments in there, the most beguiling ones when loops and interlocked pulses are brought forth in the mix amidst glitches and clicks that not for a second get annoying, thanks to a perfect percentage in the treatment of the sources and an even better timing of the related sequences. My favourite track is the fascinating “Daisee”, a hypnotic landscape with short background disturbances which, somehow, brought memories of Jon Hassell. At the end of the day, “Leise” is a nice, classy work by this hyperactive artist.
Massimo Ricci