LOST SERENADES (double vinyl, Gatefold)

Description

Ten years after the release of their last studio album (Dance of the Nerve, October 2007), the event compilation Lost Serenades is out, retracing in 24 irresistible tracks the journey of this magnificent band, one that has remained in everyone’s memory. Since their beginnings, the aura of the Bordeaux band Calc has only grown, giving them cult status for some. Led by the sensitive and gifted songwriter Julien Pras, the quintet turned quartet has devoted itself to playing hazy, atmospheric and precious pop whose richness and voluptuousness have always amazed. Thanks to enigmatic sleeve artwork, Calc’s albums have always concealed countless secrets and mysteries that made them a band apart. Accustomed to media praise (the last two albums received, among other accolades, the highly distinguished 4 ffff from Télérama), Calc was considered the French counterpart to illustrious Anglo-Saxon references such as Elliott Smith, Mercury Rev, The Zombies, Guided by Voices, or more recently Midlake, due to a sophistication and finesse in songwriting far above average, lifting their compositions to heights unexplored in our part of the world. Ten years of sleep* that in no way dulled the beauty and emotion of Calc’s songs, some of their most striking carefully remastered and compiled on Lost Serenades, an elegant double-vinyl best-of released on the occasion of the band’s surprise live return in autumn 2017. Since the late 2000s, the formidable pop whirlwind swirling in Julien Pras’s head has by no means gone out, as he has released two majestic solo albums (Southern Kind Of Slang and Shady Hollow Circus - 2010/2013 - Vicious Circle) and toured the world with his heavy rock band Mars Red Sky.