Are You There ?

Description

In itself, a rock record is always a pact offered by an artist to those who are willing to listen. While some musicians have the bad faith to claim they make music "for themselves above all," we have known for decades that the records and songs that endure gain value because the public appropriates their voices. Paul Verwaerde took his time to make his voice heard. It is through the instrumental duo, Monotrophy, that he makes his debut in music. He is not yet ready to don the singer-songwriter costume that awaits him warmly in a closet. Born in Reading, England (the cradle of a certain rock when you think about it), Paul spent his childhood traveling according to his parents' job assignments. Spain, Brazil, France, the young man sees the world, speaks several languages, but develops a form of shyness and melancholy exacerbated by this uprooting. Years later, at the threshold of adulthood, Fontanarosa becomes a way to conjure and deconstruct the torments of the past. With his first EP released in 2019, Paul's voice becomes an obvious choice. It guides the listener through dynamic and ultra-catchy pop songs. His melodic signature owes as much to the classic rock of his childhood as to garage spontaneity. A child of the home studio and a generation that discovered the history of pop on the Internet, Paul Verwaerde succeeds in creating timeless music that never falls into the trap of revival or stylistic winks. This voice, always the same, with a perfectly mastered English accent, reveals an intimate and touching universe, reflecting the sincerity of a certain folk approach. In 2021, Verwaerde wrote the songs that make up Are You There?, his first album. Recorded collaboratively with the band that accompanies him on stage (Florian Adrien, Grégoire Cagnat, Kevin Lafort), this long format stands at an equal distance between youthful energy and a matured, cohesive musical approach. Among the standout moments are the bouncing post-punk of "OH ID," "Way In Way Out," an instant of indie rock infused with krautrock, and "Final Distance Ghost," which slows the tempo and unveils a folk confessional. "Backgrounds," which closes the album, perfectly illustrates the creative freedom that the songwriter allows himself. In producing Are You There?, Verwaerde set himself only one constraint: that his songs stand on their own with just a guitar and a voice before being arranged more richly. They exist in this first album halfway between the past and the present and tell an intimate and fundamentally human story, just as rock records should never have stopped doing.