Magnolia

Description

THE FRENCH SONGWRITER'S THIRD ALBUMA LUMINOUS ALBUM OF LO-FI YET ORCHESTRAL CHAMBER DREAM POPGarden With Lips has something of Gérard Manset in the way he hides behind his songs. Something of Murat too: the style is poisonous and subdued, and dare we say, romantic. Jealously handcrafted, these songs were carefully nurtured from A to Z by a complete artist who doesn't delegate. To be classified as chamber dream pop, both lo-fi and orchestral, they are the work of a tireless stylist who reworks his craft a hundred times, weaving strings, arabesques, erasing, redoing, adding, removing, orchestrating, and then refining. The result hinges on balance, between fragility and high art, between daytime melodies and nighttime guitars, between the confined space of the room and the cosmos. On his third album Magnolia, Garden With Lips is at the peak of his art: the tracks stand out one after another, from the haunting nursery rhyme "Magnolia" to the pop hit "Animal," a duet with Marie Leskimo, from the oriental swirl of "La Démesure du temps" to the subdued groove of "Le Sud," from the whispered lowschool hip-hop of "Tu bouges" to the undeniable "Essence." For what this luminous album confirms is Garden With Lips' ability to write songs that you don't forget, and that you sing along to from the very first listen. In short, hits.