LA FRAGILITE

Description

2018 is a two-sided year for Dominique A, who invited us to follow the two common threads of his career like a diptych. The first part, "Toute latitude," recorded with a band, prominently features rock, electric, and electronic music and was released on March 9. And we discover the follow-up on October 5 with "La fragilité" and its more acoustic and intimate melodies, recorded solo this time. "La fragilité" seems like the luminous counterpart to "Toute latitude": if one listens closely, one hears a sense of calm, a certain celebration of the beauty of things and the world, a happy contemplation of landscapes ("Le temps qui passe sans moi"), some of which go back to childhood (those of Loire Atlantique, in "Comme au jour premier," or those discovered, mesmerized, during travels, like in Majorca: "La splendeur"). The tracks on "La fragilité" are entirely performed by Dominique A and recorded at home on an eight-track console. This is the third album the artist has recorded this way: after the foundational "La fossette" (1992), "La musique" (2009) was also recorded in the strictest intimacy. Most of the songs are first takes: there were many others, but it is always the first versions that manage to give the songs that feeling of intimacy, immediacy, simplicity... of a certain rediscovered juvenility? - sought after by the singer. The sound, the spirit he is looking for, but this time over the duration of an entire album, is that of the song "Rue des marais," a first take recorded at home, with makeshift means. Intimacy, once again, urgency and sincerity, and the singing that leans towards the child one once was. It seems that Dominique A's aim is not to renew himself at all costs but to intelligently delve into the same furrow, to explore the same universe with wonder, to reveal its changing reflections, as the light of time casts its rays upon it.