AKENE (vinyl)

Description

A unique specimen, when his first studio album (Repeupler) was released in 2016, Gontard chose to appear masked but naked, wounded but authoritative. It was a daring – even kamikaze – gamble to present himself for the first time in a music industry not exactly keen on power plays. The singer from Valence returns with 12 songs. AKENE is the Western-epic of a guy rambling on Nationale 7. It's a tribute to a period from which Nico Gontard draws most of his musical, literary, and cinematographic references: 1975-1985. In this choral album where character-songs appear and disappear according to whims, we chase a dream woman to the sound of global music (Mahalia Dooyoo), we go on a spree with a group of 70s French pop friends (Le plein de super, Akène Guetno). Here, we listen to the raw voices of a transvestite and his wife in full Gainsbourg-Vassiliu reggae (La séduction), there we identify with a family in disarray ('Faillite', the very Sheller-esque 'Femme d 'entretien' or 'Homme Perdu'). Radiant melodies and orchestrations immerse us in French film score or free FM radio atmospheres. Personal references spring forth with new clarity: New Order / Robert Smith, the AIDS years, seedy places and environments, Ferré during his CBS period, Bizot, the end of a certain community spirit, Reiser, etc. It’s unsettling, it makes you smile, and sometimes it's terrifying. Still as vibrant on this fourth album, the voice becomes more playful, nostalgic, and serene. Accompanied by his perfectly cohesive band of excellent musicians and rich with a hundred concerts together, Nico Gontard still manages to deliver his rebellious lyrics and melodies and connect them to intimate joys and discomforts. All the songs on AKENE are essential. In the southern sky, there are always plenty of stars; let's bet that with this album, there will be one for Gontard. 'You who still believe in my quagmire despite the grime accumulated over the years, Anémone. You who still believe that the sad zazou opinion leaders will eventually listen to my records, that they will listen to them loudly, perhaps even shed a tear, and at the end of the story reconsider my case and the case of all those who are strange people.' (excerpt from Le Vent sifflera trois fois).