For Dutch artist Stefan Vincent, the feeling of melancholy also offers the opportunity for beauty to
be found. "Decay and loneliness can serve a purpose. Depression can teach you things. To feel
deep sadness also means the ability to feel profound emotions." he says. With this in mind, his
debut album on MUSAR Recordings, "Post-Melancholy", unpacks the twists and turns of grappling
with this emotion, drawing from breaks, electro and IDM to make his most intricate work to date,
after previous releases on Token, Dynamic Reflection, Symbolism, and Non-Series.
Throughout "Post-Melancholy" Vincent traces the wave of melancholy and how it moves through
the body, which allows for lighter moments alongside darker moods. Perhaps the lightest track on
the album is its acidic-breaks opener, "Eyes Unclouded", with its soaring acid lines and dazzling
synths, which acts as a false pretense for the rest of the album. Tracks like "Poise", "Arpeggino"
and the meditative "Yonghegong Lama Temple Exit F" also break up the intensity. However, nestled
between the more pacey, bass-weighted tracks on the album, these lighter openings still feel like
tear-jerkers.
The more common associations of melancholy show up on tracks like "Another Skin To Wear" and
"You Know This Isn't Going To End Well", which all create a more ominous feel via IDM and the
polyrhythmic structures of drum'n'bass. Particularly on "Another Skin To Wear", which borrows its
name from a Radiohead lyric, the track's swooping motion feels realistic to melancholy's chaotic
and often unpredictable path. But, like all great storytellers, Vincent leaves the most poignant
moment of the album for last with the rolling "8AM on the Train... (For Maarten)" devoted to his dear
friend, Maarten, who sadly passed away at the young age of 36.