Julien Gasc’s Miraculous Catch on Pearls, Corals and Sharks

A new triptych for the former Aquaserge member: thirteen years after his debut Cerf, biche et faon (2013), followed by four more solo albums, Julien Gasc moves from the solitary forest-dweller to the plural mariner with Perles, coraux et requins. It is also a return to song, after the pared-down Grand jardin (2024) and the beautiful alembic of Re eff (2022), marked by this masterfully inspired album. Perles, coraux et requins also reconnects with that Gainsbourg-esque art of the swirl, refined on L’Appel de la forêt and reworked here by an unexpected guest, in the person of Anton Newcombe (The Brian Jonestown Massacre). When the latter discovers his songs as the opening act for Stereolab in Berlin, he immediately offers his services: there, with the same momentum, Gasc finds in Newcombe both the outsider’s gaze and the fan he needs. The Brian Jonestown frontman’s production is often staggering, whether it’s slyly slipping a keyboard motif that changes everything, or suddenly jumping between different vocal takes, thereby turning Julien into a chameleon, or rather a rainbow fish whose colors keep shifting.

His phrasing, a blend of weariness and indulgence, sometimes brings to mind Philippe Katerine who trusted his pure poetry enough not to clown around (the sort of thing found in Mauvaises fréquentations or Le Film), and, while he occasionally requires the acclimation demanded by the unusual, he launches melodies that would make Michel Legrand envious—even within the curious, vaguely tropical arrangements (in the sense of a wave) of the gently astonishing title track, a metaphysical rendition of Bourvil’s Salade de fruits propelled into space—an idiosyncratic way of saying: a masterful piece of chanson. In this art-pop, dressed with Brazilian touches and detours, where every element (notably rhythmic) is treated with a care rarely seen in Francophone song (and elsewhere), we glimpse at times the improbable hexagonal counterpart of Paddy McAloon, or of Chico Buarque.

To Express Both Laughter and Tears

His harmonies drape words in shimmering light, words that swim between the new and the loosened haiku, with gaps of the prosaic – prosaiku? – which, for example, invite us Chez Martine, a hazy utopia of a daily life fished up by laughter. Yet, to express both these laughs and tears (Rosen Montag), the elegance that Gasc achieves on this record has few contemporary equivalents—perhaps a recent Babx or his former colleague Barbagallo. “A gateway opens to worlds I do not know / Where the tangible and the intangible mingle,” Julien sings on the sublime Goût de tes Lèvres: the best definition of what music can be, and of his in particular.

Perles, coraux et requins (Prohibited Records/Kuroneko). Out on June 5. In concert at Le Chinois (Montreuil) on June 5.