-=- SHGZ -=-
* Shoegaze * Indie * Post-Rock * Grunge * Dream Pop * Psych-Rock * Ethereal *
ARTIST..: Le SuperHomard
ALBUM...: Meadow Lane Park
GENRE...: Pop
STYLE...: Indie Pop, Alternative Rock, Pop Rock
YEAR....: 2019
LABEL...: Elefant
LANGUAGE: English
COUNTRY.: France
PLACE...: Rochefort-du-Gard / Montpellier, Languedoc-Roussillon
ENCODER.: FLAC 1.3.1 -8 -V
BITRATE.: 911 kbps avg
QUALITY.: 44.1kHz / 2 channels
SOURCE..: CD
TRACKS..: 12
SIZE....: 257.65 MB
URL..: http://www.facebook.com/lesuperhomard/
- TRACKLIST
1 In The Park 2:34
2 Springtime 4:02
3 Door After Door 3:54
4 Paper Girl 2:41
5 Karaoking 3:10
6 Snowflakes 3:14
7 Meadow Lane Park 3:20
8 Elephant In The Room 4:33
9 SDVB 3:05
10 Black Diamond 3:06
11 Refuel 3:59
12 Back To Meadow Lane 1:37
Total Playtime: 39:15
NOTICE: MeadowLanePark as a one word album title is only for artistic design on the album cover.
All online links show that the official album title consists of seperate words.
http://elefant.com/grupos/le-superhomard/noticia/1013/le-superhomard-meadow-lane-park-lpcd (Label)
http://elefant.com/disco/15761/ (Label Store)
http://elefantrecords.bandcamp.com/album/meadow-lane-park (Label Bandcamp)
http://soundcloud.com/lesuperhomard (Band Soundcloud)
http://darla.com/products/le-superhomard-meadow-lane-park
Music video from the band shows 'Meadow Lane Park' in the credits:
Youtube: Le SuperHomard - Meadow Lane Park (at 2m40)
*
Label info:
"Meadow Lane Park" is the first full-length album from the French quintet LE
SUPERHOMARD, after having released a Mini-LP, "Maple Key" (on the Japanese
label Rally Label, in the UK in Megadodo, in USA on Jigsaw Records and in
France through the labels Le Pop Club Records and Echo Orange) and a Digital
EP, and after the advance Single "Springtime", released with Elefant Records.
This is an album that, right from the cover and the titles of some of the
songs, shows us its bucolic vocation. Just put on the song that opens the
album, "In The Park", and we can see that the landscapes they show us are
injected with acid, flooded with stardust, with lysergic caresses, sweet and
tremendously pleasant. We haven't heard anything like this since that "The
Noise Made By People" by BROADCAST.
The thing is, under the play of the synthesizers, under the psychedelic-style
muted bases, strings and guitars aimed at lounge, they create an irresistible
atmosphere that the album manages in a very special way. We already knew
about the danceable roughness of "Springtime". "Door After Door" tells us how
strawberry fields would be if they had been discovered today, or how the
dreaminess of Syd Barret would be. But "Paper Girl" sets up the first game:
with the same elements we find a song that could have been a huge hit by ABBA
arranged by Laetitia Sadier and Tim Gane. "Karaoking" develops a more
classical concept of a song, with a piano presiding and arrangements that
remind us somehow of the goldsmithing of another distinguished Frenchman
close to Elefant, Mehdi Zannad. And the marvelous voice of Julie Big taking
us toward sonic paradises. "Snowflakes" takes us back to Trish Keenan's band,
or even to those marvelous THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. Landscapes colored
with notes from outer space, or a new test of the power of music: how can a
song be capable of painting the marvels of an unknown planet's nature in your
head. You don't know where you are, but welcome.
"Meadow Lane Park" was another advance, with the lyrical strenght of its
strings and the kraut rhythm of the powerful mellotrons. "Elephant In The
Room" makes it clear how much of Burt Bacharach there is in these songs.
Delicious. Majestic. Designed to break hearts without even talking about it.
"SDVB" and "Black Diamond" put the synthesizers back in the starring role, as
well as the arpeggiators, bringing us close to the eighties without betraying
the essence of what we have heard so far, and continuing to give us great
string arrangements and powerfully evocative details. "Refuel" dives back
into kraut, jazz, astral worlds, submarine journeys. The capacity of the
songs to excite our imagination is incredible, especially when it is closed
by another instrumental "Back To Meadow Lane": overflowing with lyricism, but
at the same time visited by martian harmonies. This is all a musical banquet
given to use by the band led by Christophe Vaillant.
LE SUPERHOMARD have made an important album, a descendent of a sound that
almost was orphaned because of how difficult it is to build it: mixing these
different elements and successfully waking up infinite worlds in the listener
is a task that not everyone is capable of. But finally, the SuperLobster is
here. There is nothing left to fear.
*
After releasing the very promising MapleKey EP in 2016, the French band Le
SuperHomard were positioned as the next great band in the tradition of
Stereolab, Broadcast, and the High Llamas. 2019's Meadow Lane Park makes good
on that promise and should please anyone who ever loved the kind of
retro-looking, futuristic-sounding pop those bands made in their prime. With
songs written, played, and produced by Christophe Vaillant, then sung by
Julie Big in breathlessly soft tones, the album is a gentle musical hug that
plays on nostalgic strings, but also adds something special -- and perhaps
left over from his days playing power pop in the Strawberry Smell -- to the
template. Despite their rounded edges and pillowy production, the songs on
the album have hooks sharp enough to draw blood. Up-tempo tracks like "Paper
Girl" or the title track have a snappy strut that's almost gleeful, the
bouncy mid-tempo songs have a sweet, ambling appeal -- especially the lovely
"Springtime," which feels like the soundtrack for snow melting and buds
appearing on trees -- and the ballads have a pocket Bacharach feel about them
that's quite alluring. The combination of the strings, vintage synths,
burbling bass lines, and Big's aching vocal on "Door After Door" and "Refuel"
show that the band really have a grip on how to construct a ballad for
maximum sonic and emotional impact. Vaillant's skills as an arranger are
evident throughout as he fills the mixes with just the right synth sound,
stately piano run, clunky drum machine, or swooping organ line. It's about as
lush as one could imagine, but also has a nice homemade feel, which isn't
surprising considering he made the record after hours at the record shop
where he works. Meadow Lane Park is unlikely to make anyone forget High
Llamas or the Cardigans -- another fine band they are reminiscent of -- but
any song here would sound drop-dead perfect next to them on a play list or
mixtape. That's heady praise, but Le SuperHomard earn it.
*
Le SuperHomard's French pop music may be a parallel universe St Etienne and
Meadow Lane Park the soundtrack playing in Antoine Doinel's head.
Jean-Pierre LΘaud turns into the camera, glances at and beyond the audience,
before starting into a run, away from us and into his character Antoine
Doinel's future. The opening instrumental track ("In the Park") of Meadow
Lane Park indeed evokes Frantois Truffaut's mid-period Antoine Doinel
pictures. It's an auspicious beginning that locates Le SuperHomard within the
rich tradition of French cinema and the scores by the likes of Georges
Delerue and Antoine Duhamel. That it is a fleeting moment, rather than the
drive of the album, seems perfectly in tune with Doinel as a character.
The dream pop Stereolab groove of "Springtime" appears to leave the cinema
behind, yet that isn't quite the case. Rather, it ultimately feels as if the
album could be the soundtrack playing in the head of a contemporary
manifestation of Antoine Doinel; soundtracking his internal life rather than
existing merely at the audience's pleasure.
Elsewhere, "Door After Door" flows and squelches like a Jean-Claude Vannier
production for Serge Gainsbourg gone post-house. The title track is where
John Barry meets Braodcast at their most airily psychedelic minus the
radiophonics. "Elephant In the Room" is pure pop music, lush strings almost
floating off from the background. It has an international rather than French
feel, presumably intentionally so. "SDVB", on the other hand, channels the
comforting almost-electro of Air and is thrillingly French as a result.
Christophe Valliant conceived of the project and brought in a group of
musicians to realise his vision, including vocals sung in English by Julie
Big. The lyrics were written by English speakers Pandora Burgess and Yoanna
Claquin to avoid what Valiant views as bad English that plagues some French
bands. The move has paid off and it feels as natural in English as Stereolab
songs do sung in French. Le SuperHomard come off like a parallel universe St
Etienne, with a healthy dose of the pop magic that implies.
The overall effect of Meadow Lane Park evokes the look of Jean-Luc Godard's
1960s Technicolor and Eastmancolor films - think Pierrot le Fou or Le MΘpris -
if not the questioning, pessimistic feel. This is upbeat French pop music
made to be played under the too bright sun, just don't expect there to be any
long shadows.
*
Drawing on influences such as Air, St. Etienne, Broadcast, and Stereolab with
the 1960s panache of Burt Bacharach, Serge Gainsbourg, and Nancy Sinatra, Le
SuperHomard cast wonderous and mesmerising incantations all over their latest
long-player which - if one is allowed to wax lyrical -conjures up road trips
along the C(te d'Azur, in an open top sports car with a beautiful companion
at your side.
Meadow Lane Park is the second LP proper from the Rochefort-du-Gard band,
signed to Spain's Elefant Records. If you're at all into any or all of the
artists listed above, you'll probably know what to expect: sophisticated,
upbeat, glamorous pop, quality arrangements, gorgeous singing, wistful dreamy
mellotron guided melodies. I loved it from the first listen, and - in all
honesty - am yet to tire of it. It's hard to evoke the French Riviera sitting
on a bus in Swindon in February in the rain, yet such is the transformational
quality of Le SuperHomard's music, you can almost imagine yourself there.
Pop, of course, is a very polarising term. I couldn't, for example, tell you
what's Number One in the pop charts at this very minute. I can tell you that
it's probably Artist A and Artist B (Feat. Artist C), and it'll sound the
same as Number Two in the pop charts, and Number Three and so on. "A-ha!"
you'll say, "A-ha! But you're a middle-aged, middle-class, beardy white guy -
who are you to tell the kids what to like!", and to be fair you'd probably be
right. The last thing The Kids need is another middle-aged, middle-class,
beardy white guy telling them what to listen to. But pop isn't just for the
kids. If you switch on BBC Four in the UK, you're bound to encounter 1980s
pop at both its best and at its very worst. Pop is big business. Pop is
everywhere. Many of us (Echoes and Dust readers excepted) rarely move on from
the music of our youth - it brings us comfort, something safe, something
familiar. But bands like Le SuperHomard, and Lord knows we need more of 'em,
draw on the classic pop tropes of yesteryear, but bring everything bang up to
date with original songs, crisp production, and a swirling sense of
psychedelic experimentation. Meadow Lane Park may seem like a mindless meander
through a leafy garden, but it's all very carefully planned, tipping a hat to
the past, but bringing us something that is fresh and irresistible - like a
plate of scallops.
Don't like scallops? Well I can't help that. I don't like most pop. But if
Pop should be anything it should be this experimental, and if you listen to
those soaring string sections, that deep throbbing bass, and clear as crystal
vocal arrangements you'll understand exactly what is missing from the
homogenized hit parade of 2019. Meadow Lane Park is grown up, satisfying, and
glorious.
*
About:
With a sound that craftily mixes from the smooth easy listening of the '50s,
sophisticated continental pop of the '60s, and the bands of the '90s like the
Cardigans and Stereolab who borrowed liberally from them as well, the French
group Le SuperHomard displayed a warm, nostalgic glow on their 2016 debut EP,
MapleKey. It landed them a deal with legendary indie pop label Elefant, which
released their debut album, Meadow Lane Park, in 2019.
The band is guided by the pop vision of multi-instrumentalist/producer
Christophe Vaillant, who in the early 2000s was in the power pop group the
Strawberry Smell and later in the decade played in Pony Taylor. In 2015, he
started work on Le SuperHomard as a solo venture but soon teamed with his
drumming brother, Oliver, and vocalist Pandora Burgess for the project's
first record, 2016's MapleKey EP, which was released by labels in Japan, the
U.K., and the U.S. Vaillant utilized a combination of guitars and drum
machines, vintage synths, and loping bass lines to craft music that showed
the influence of classic songwriters like Burt Bacharach, the sonic skills of
Brian Wilson, and the post-modern approach of craftspeople like Broadcast and
the High Llamas. Vaillant assembled a live band and played shows starting in
2016. After signing with Spanish label Elefant, Vaillant began work on a
full-length album with the help of vocalist Julie Big and co-producer Benoit
Pithon. Recording after hours at the record shop where he worked, Vaillant
crafted a sound that was lusher and more intricately arranged than MapleKey,
while still following the same musical signposts.
-=- SHGZ -=-
P.S.
** Thanks ***
*** BCC FNT IPC SSR ***
*** For Knowing Where The Music Is At ***
*** Props to CaHeSo, awesome Asian Indie/Shoegaze ***
*** And to FANG/HOUND for supporting all the Indie lovers out there ***
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* NuHS we miss you! *
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