Also in stores this week, the new albums from Pet Shop Boys and Teenage Fan Club.
Dominique A Spirales (Cinq7/Wagram)
Where La Musique (2009) perfectly distilled the minimalist and lyrical poles of Dominique, Spirales almost reverses the trend: Sébastien Boisseau’s double bass lays down a soft, plush carpet on which the electric guitar (making a prominent return here) sharpens its edge, as if echoing the conflicted era of Remué (1999), while melodies drift in and out in the iridescent flow of water.
By Rémi Boiteux
Read the review of Spirales
Pet Shop Boys A Man from the Future (Parlophone/Warner)
In eight tracks, A Man from the Future blends machines, orchestral elements, children’s choirs, and spoken word to unfold the life of Turing across as many chapters. From the discovery of his sexuality to his pivotal role in decrypting Enigma, the device used by Nazi Germany during World War II, to his conviction for homosexuality and his suicide in 1954. Far from the electro-dance anthems the duo has long been associated with, this album stands as a grand Pet Shop Boys statement, where the duo’s melodic genius unfolds with almost operatic splendor, inserting itself into the band’s discography through its orchestral imprint, its narrative form, and its openly militant dimension.
By Patrick Thévenin
Read the review of A Man from the Future
Séverin Tout est vrai (Neon Napoleon/Bigwax)
Is it perhaps because it was recorded on the Isle of Wight that Séverin’s new album seems to float in the clarity of Laurent Voulzy’s melodies, and in the vein of the Kinks and other Bees who also passed through the Chale Abbey studio? In any case, to narrate his emotionally charged forties, the French musician has chosen delicate pop that never tips into sentimentality, and has surrounded himself with faithful collaborators (and former Revolver) Jérémie Arcache and Ambroise Willaume, aka Sage. The latter has invited his Astral Bakers bandmate, bassist Théodora Delilez, whose groove is irresistible, along with Canadian drummer Robbie Kuster.
By Sophie Rosemont
Read the review of Tout est vrai
Teenage Fanclub Do Not Dare to Dream (Merge Records/Modulor)
Do Not Dare to Dream resumes the familiar codes that illuminate Teenage Fan Club’s output: grace-filled vocal harmonies (as on the astonishing Over and Over, worthy of the Byrds, or the pastoral Take Time), instantly timeless melodies and a satin-like songwriting polish, while allowing themselves welcome digressions, such as the breathtaking coda of Tomorrow People or the cosmic keyboards of Euros Childs, the Welshman and former wonderfully troubled leader of Gorky’s Zygotic Mynci, who joined the Scottish band in 2019. A waking dream.
By Noémie Lecoq
Read the review of Do Not Dare to Dream
Cameron Winter Live at Carnegie Hall (Partisan Records/PIAS)
Listening to this recording, its almost-sacred atmosphere brings to mind the Idiot Prayer that the Australian released in 2020—an equal measure of reverent stillness, a pure, radiant intensity, and the same sense of infinite resonance. Yet more than anything, the listening experience clearly points back to Bob Dylan: not the Dylan who was among the very few to have graced this Carnegie Hall stage before the age of 25, but the more intimate Dylan heard in the Witmark Demos, the indispensable 2010 bootleg. These demos, inhabited by a Dylan who is at once free and meticulous, already showing his best work between 1962 and 1964 on songs like When The Ship Comes In or The Times They Are A-Changin’, performed solo behind a piano as tremulous as Winter’s fingers currently tracing the keys. Despite the ceremony of the setting, one even dares to imagine something even more intimate: the heartbreaking tapes recorded by Daniel Johnston in his Beatles-obsessed bedroom.
By Rémi Boiteux
Read the review of Live at Carnegie Hall by Cameron Winter
