MORTHEM VLADE ART – an almost 10 years lasting success story backed by five released albums finds its end in 2004, not an unexpected one. The peak was reached, the metamorphosis finished. Now in 2007 the duo Gregg Anthe and Emmanuelle D. leave a last farewell with their best-of album Uncertain Days.
This double CD containing record offers you a good retrospective over the entire musical work of this excellent French band that never wanted to be just a due since many other people were always involved in the creation of their soundscapes.
MORTHEM VLADE ART was always one of just a few bands that were all the time innovative, always able to add something new and different to the music, something surprising, unpredictable. None of their records sounded like the predecessor, and never the way you might have expected. Every single record is unique, timeless and often light-years away from the scene and genre they were ranging in.
Was the debut album Herbo Dou Diable (1998) marvelously wild, chaotic, way-out with harsh Industrial sounds and classic elements, likewise peppered with a punky attitude as well as an Avant-garde note, the sophomore Organic But Not Mental (2000) tuned out to be much quieter, you know, kind of cultivated and elegant, sophisticated, but still harsh and even darker. In 2001 Antechamber followed, which couldn’t be more antithetical, compared with the predecessors. Industrial turned into minimalist and intellectual Electro, while Photography In Things (2003) even displayed a slight Pop appeal and was compared musically with the work of David Bowie. 2004 the final album Absente Terebenthine got released and around six months later MORTHEM VLADE ART announced their break-up.
As I already mentioned: ten years of exceptional and timeless music, now summarized in Uncertain Days the (almost) perfect best-of collection for fans and new comer.

Uncertain Days begins with three tracks from the 2003 album Photography In Things, goes a step forward with E-Clipse from Absente Terebenthine, steps back again and forward and back and comes to Spirits from the sophomore, followed by Closer To Me a little later from the debut. With Splendor In The Grass and Endless Dream one further song from the first both albums appear. Summing up, there are 2 songs each of the first three albums and 5 tracks from the last two ones. Hmmm… they could have taken 3 songs each from every album…

On the second CD Uncertain Days offers many unreleased songs from tapes recorded before Herbo Dou Diable, of course re-mastered. I like most L’Usine and 10 Mg, because there are female vocals on it you rarely find on a MORTHEM VLADE ART album. Both songs can be heard on the band’s MySpace site. Even rarer Emmanulle D. sings I don’t understand, because she has such a beautifully dark and sensual voice, as she proves with My Ear At Night. Wonderful is also the unplugged version of Absente Terebenthine or the instrumental closer Transitions, which is romantically crackling like an old vinyl. Of course, there are also remixed versions of the known tracks too.

Merely the booklet I’m not satisfied with, which turns out meager. I would have loved to see more information published there. Liner notes from Gregg and Emmanuelle for example, the singer on the first both tracks on the second CD. There also no graphics nor personal or live pictures on it, which is too bad…