L IDIOPHONE

Description

Self-proclaimed studio sloth, Forever Pavot may spend a lot of time at home, but he knows how to transport himself elsewhere in two measures. There is an art to storytelling in 'L'idiophone', which takes only three minutes to unfold. It's the entire soundtrack of a carefully freeze-dried film, a delicious instant soup full of pieces that regain volume in our hi-fi systems when you add a bit of whisky. - - It opens with a paranoid chase of a music-loving gangster in an Ami 8, where Emile Sornin treats us to some remarkable little flourishes, like a police van's siren that - despite the Doppler effect - manages to stay in harmony. - - Perhaps bad memories of lockdown, the Sornin house is a battlefield: methodically unearthing objects while whispering is 'in his wheelhouse'. His clock annoys him and becomes an excuse for a fast and square rhythmic solfège lesson. - - The album was made in close collaboration with Vincent Taeger (drums), Maxime Daoud (bass), and Sami Osta (production and mixing), who delicately found a place for the armada of keyboards, brass, and strings on which Arnaud Sèche came to lay down some flutes. The vocals are well up front, and we say thank you. The lyrics are received five out of five. - - Forever Pavot's project is shaping up very well: since 'Rhapsode' (2014) and 'La pantoufle' (2017), his flirtation with song is starting to resemble a civil partnership. - - Emile Sornin, just like those solipsistic instruments that are self-sufficient, manages very well to produce idiosyncratic yet familiar music. Middle-aged, if not medieval, the multi-instrumentalist delivers a mature album that modestly reveals his mastery of several generations of ivory/button combinations with or without amplification. - - A few instrumentals allow the band to play with wawa choirs à la Morricone, to marry Ondes Martenot and honky-tonk piano… and everywhere, the spring reverb that ties it all together like a good mayo. It would be a shame, by reflex, to anchor the understanding of his music in that of his elders from the Pompidou-Giscard years: like them, Forever Pavot knows how to write, period.