HYPERMONDES (vinyl)

Description

Since his beginnings, Amor Blitz has never stopped carving out a path à la Lewis Carroll - to the other side of the mirror, where imagination plays on equal footing with reality. In the lineage of a melodic and insatiable pop, embodied as much by Todd Rundgren as by Unknown Mortal Orchestra, Emmanuel Szczygiel unfolds carefully crafted melodies, which he enjoys blowing apart as the mood takes him. Carried by poetic and familiar writing, the harmonies become playful. Nothing is lost, everything intertwines - the psych excursions are enriched by orchestral arrangements (strings, electric organs, flutes), the voice wraps itself around the guitars, the production becomes cinematic. Where the first record expressed an urgency, a resolutely rock impatience, Amor Blitz has evolved toward more slowness and magic. The energy has not been lost along the way, but has taken side roads: rather than heading straight for the cliff, the melodies take their time getting lost, sometimes to flesh themselves out, sometimes to shed their layers. The writing, like the production, has expanded. The sound space, richer, now allows itself to welcome more things: the groove of the drums and basses, influenced by Motown or Stax, has gained in presence. Between soft rock and psychedelic pop, Hypermondes allows itself artifices but does not pretend. Hypermondes is an escape to the four corners of a world that is neither ours, nor quite another. By heading straight into the imaginary, Emmanuel Szczygiel seeks the shortest path to beauty.--- Andrea Thominot ---