This album is SHORT. At 27 minutes and just five tracks, one might wonder why Julienne Dessagne (this is a solo act) didn’t call it an EP. But maybe this is a good way to go in the trenches of the modern attention wars. It set me to thinking about two recent-ish albums that have become fabourites: Earl Sweatshirt’s 24 minutes of rap introspection SICK! from 2022, and last year’s Rosenhagtorn by Isabel Gustaffson-Ny, a sub-18 minute wisp of puzzling, barely there jazz-folk abstraction.
In both those cases, getting caught out by the short run-time was conducive to hitting “play” again, or indeed even leaving them on repeat. And in both those cases, they were deep and cryptic records, so those repeat plays became addictive, they got under my skin, and became favourites in the old fashioned way: like in the days when you’d know every crackle or bit of tape hiss in each new record you bought
And yes, this album works like that too. It it themed around the myth of Theseus, the minotaur and the labyrinth, and it absolutely feels like a shifting puzzle in itself – especially if you do put it on repeat. Opener “The Ship of Theseus” has constantly switching tones (maybe alluding to the various replaced parts of the titular ship?) while Dessagne’s witchy chants abruptly switch register to fit the cubist style. Centrepiece “Labyrinths” creates high drama with rolling percussion in a way that you might call Zimmer-ish if Hans Zimmer hadn’t cheapened his own style so badly.
Throughout there are mysterious downtuned voices, glassy and breathy synths and darkness galore. Then there’s “Ariadne’s Thread, Unravelling” which creates an ultra-deluxe version of Kraftwerk’s tonality and the atmospheres of Tron to create a stunning immersive world that is a complete, complex drama in itself. The high, chilling “it’s cold outside” refrain of the final “Nuances of Triumph” makes you wonder if it’s the labyrinth or Plato’s cave we’re emerging from, and so you’re left, baffled and not a little disconcerted by the plots within plots and puzzles within puzzles, but absolutely ready to hit play all over again.
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