MELODIUM – music for invisible people
(CD, autres directions)
When I was a kid of about twelve years old we used to
discuss what being invisible would mean for us. The points argued about
included how to get into a bank and to carry all the money out that you need
and would the money also turn invisible when you carried it? At which point
would foot being eaten turn invisible? And is it possible to see when the
eyeballs reflecting the light of the outside world and turning it into
pictures in our head were invisible? True, a very naïve and light hearted
way to go about things and a very obscure issue to discuss about, but then
we were kids and these things mattered to us as much as arguing if a
werewolf could really kill a vampire. Looking back now I can’t help but
smile at these sentiments but there is a part of me – and probably it is a
major part – that still likes to ponder things like these, follows them
down and has fun using silly thoughts and ideas for entertainment. Sometimes
the results of these is not at all lighthearted or silly, but opens up a new
persective on some things (though at times they also lose a lot of their
interest very fast and early on.) The basic way of looking at things, the
openess and the favour for the simplest solution to obscure problems also
works in the music of Laurent Garnier aka Melodium.
On his second “real” (whatever that means) album
for autres directions and about seventh album all in all classically trained
pianist and electronic songwriter Laurent Garnier aka Melodium lets the
songwriting part of his music take over the leading role. But he does so in
a very nice, lighthearted way. It is a step comparable to the one that
Jochen Gutsch aka Hinterlandt
has moved along in the last years. It feels like someone opening up the
window and together with a gush of fresh air he is letting the sunshine in.
More openess, more ease and more romanticism that fills live with warm
emotions. Two doves don’t make a summer and this record is also more apt
to make a great autumn or winter, but it could be that after the
re-introduction of guitars and traditional instruments into electronic
music, we are facing a new trend that is the re-introduction of the most
basic pop-principles into electronic music. And I don’t mean the
superstar-focus or the business side of pop-music, but the candysweet side
of wonderful melodies and easy flow of arrangements.
Songs start with some plings and plongs from electronic
chimes and such and with the hum of an organ, a strummed guitar and a simple
drumbeat turn into the best example of indietronica that I have heard in
quite some time. One of the best examples of this is a song called “my
xelophone loves me” and prominently features a harmonica. It is still true
that the songs of Melodium sound simple and easy on the surface, though at
closer inspection they turn out to be decievingly complex in structure and
delicate in their production. A lot if these songs are instrumental, some
don’t go further than humming and indecipherable soft growls, but the
majority turn into real pop-songs with pop-melodies after some time. All
kinds of odd and less odd instruments crop up here and there from the
aforementioned xylophone via the flutes and melodicas to all kinds of
keyboards.
