Prologue

Description

Cutting off the itchy label is the first thing to do for anyone treating themselves to a beautiful garment. For Laurent Bardainne, shopping began in 2001 and it allowed him to explore every style without irritating the skin, from Poni Hoax (the best French rock band of his generation) to Limousine (5 cinematic jazz albums between 2005 and 2023), via Lost (with Camélia Jordana) and Tigre d'Eau Douce and its comforting saxophone. Twenty-five years of clothes piling up in this thousand-colored wardrobe, but there was still room on an empty shelf for a solo project, under his own name: it is now done with this Prologue EP, where Laurent Bardainne signs with Heavenly Sweetness a summary of all his previous musical journeys. Need a label, really? Okay, it’s pop. Like its iconoclastic and deliciously deviant cover signed by one of the young figures of comics, Salomé Lahoche, who shares a taste for stepping aside, fertile unease and joyfully blurred boundaries. If some still have trouble following the saxophonist and keyboardist’s route(s), let’s say that for a quarter of a century the Frenchman born in Fougères has been seeking beauty everywhere it hides. After lifting almost every big stone of rock and jazz, the time has therefore come for synthesis: “I wanted to take a break from exploring jazz,” he explains, “I wanted to mix for the first time all the things I’ve done since my beginnings, namely Poni Hoax, Limousine and Tigre d'Eau Douce.” The result is a sunny EP made up of unexpected (re)discoveries. Because unlike Gérard Manset, Laurent Bardainne doesn’t like traveling alone. For this new record chapter, recorded in Belleville in Fred Soulard’s studio, we find Pupajim (Stand High Patrol) and the formidable Mélissa Weikart on vocals, “a virtuoso jazz musician discovered at a festival, and who doesn’t really like labels, at once a fan of indie, free jazz and uk garage.” And on instruments, it is none other than the full lineup of Poni Hoax. A first for Vincent Taeger, Nicolas Villebrun and Arnaud Roulin; all reunited for the first time since Nicolas Ker’s death in 2021: “When we got back together in the studio to record This is your song, we all understood that this song was dedicated to him,” Bardainne says, moved. But even so, and even if the musical telepathy remains intact among all the members of the band, this new EP is anything but a Poni Hoax repeat performance. You can hear as much of Suzanne Vega’s vocal influences as those of LCD Soundsystem in the electronic treatments or even Sonic Youth, for the rock-pop blend. Once again, a refusal to choose. Conceived as the introduction to a forthcoming musical show, between love and horror, this Prologue EP turns every knob of knee-slapping pop all the way up. A treat for the musicians’ rhythm section, all trained at the Conservatoire, and which pairs perfectly with Mélissa Weikart’s soaring vocals on the obvious single This is your song, not to mention Finest in town, a kind of mesmerizing country anthem that brings down the last barriers lazily erected by the last guardians of the temple: “I’ve always refused to be trapped in a musical mold,” Bardainne explains, “and the public’s tastes are much less stereotyped than before too.” So forget the idea that pop, rock and jazz are playing at the same hotel; these first five songs sound almost like a manifesto for openness, curiosity and rediscovered innocence. “To choose is to renounce,” says the proverb. Once again, a 100% winning bet for Laurent Bardainne, and one that should quickly allow this XXL-sized project to find its way to the stage and the radio, just as it did exactly 20 years ago with the first self-titled single by Poni Hoax.