L'IDIOPHONE (vinyl)

Description

A self-proclaimed studio recluse, Forever Pavot may spend a lot of time at home, but he knows how to transport himself elsewhere in two measures. There's an art to storytelling in "L'idiophone," which only takes three minutes to unfold. It's the entire soundtrack to a carefully freeze-dried film, a delicious instant soup full of morsels that expands in our hi-fi systems with a splash of whisky. It opens with a paranoid chase scene involving a music-loving gangster in an Ami 8, in which Émile Sornin indulges in remarkable little flourishes, like the "pinpon" of a police van that—despite the Doppler effect—manages to stay in harmony. Perhaps bad memories of lockdown, the Sornin household is a battlefield: methodically thrashing objects while whispering is "right up his alley." His clock annoys him and becomes a pretext for a fast, precise 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 over which Arnaud Sèche added some flutes. The vocals are prominent, and we appreciate it. The lyrics are perfectly clear. Forever Pavot's project is taking shape very well: since "Rhapsode" (2014) and "La pantoufle" (2017), his flirtation with song is starting to look like a civil partnership. Émile Sornin, much like these solipsistic instruments that are self-sufficient, does very well at producing idiosyncratic but 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 Morricone-esque wah-wah choirs, to marry Martenot waves and honky-tonk piano, and everywhere, the spring reverb that binds everything together like good mayonnaise. 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.