singling out individual moments seems contrived when the album as a
whole impresses as one lovely, uninterrupted swoon. -Textura
"a very sunny and intimate collection of songs." -Get Echo
"a hugely impressive affair." -Fat Planet
This is some heavily textured and very pretty song-writing. -Are You Familiar?
"He does the electronic/acoustic thing (a la Four Tet) quite nicely, and has been doing so for some time now" -Gifted
Melodium: Flacana Flacana
Audio Dregs
Melodium: Music For Invisible People
Autres Directions in Music
[textura] CA
Music For Invisible People and Flacana Flacana are two dramatically different Melodium releases by Laurent Girard. The former is the more pop song-oriented of the two and includes a generous amount of singing; the latter is minimal by comparison with the focus on brief settings of piano and guitar.
Girard digitally assembled Music For Invisible People's guitars, vocals, flutes, melodicas, xylophone, and keyboards after composing the songs during a summer stay on the isle of Oleron, and the breezy, folk-styled material often feels like it's been warmed by the sun. Melodicas and xylophones convey a wistful tale of lost romance in “My Xylophone Loves Me,” making it Melodium music at its best. Unfortunately, Girard's singing, while serviceable and natural, isn't on par with the material itself which consistently impresses. The melancholy guitars and shuddering strings that float through “I'm Not Already Dead” communicate far more affectingly than does the monotone vocal, for instance. Interestingly, Girard's material is more appealing the less it's encumbered by excess and when its melodies are provided room to breathe. The otherwise lovely piano and vibes melodies in “We Are All Right Here,” for example, are only weakened by the stumbling drum pattern.
All such weaknesses are absent on Flacana Flacana . At first glance,
one might expect that Music For Invisible People's more elaborate production
approach will render it more appealing but it's Flacana Flacana's simplicity
that charms most (simplicity even extends to the titles: “Flacana
01,” “Flacana 02,” etc.). There's no need to strain
to appreciate Girard's melodic gifts here as they're front and center
throughout. The mood is typically dreamy and melancholic in 17 purely
instrumental vignettes that feature piano, acoustic and (sometimes aggressive)
electric guitars. The only caveat is that some songs are so short, they
verge on sketches; more critically, such pieces miss out on the emotional
satisfaction a longer piece can produce. Having said that, the lilt
of the fifth variation is beautiful, as is the graceful arc of electric
guitars in the sixth, but, really, singling out individual moments seems
contrived when the album as a whole impresses as one lovely, uninterrupted
swoon.
January 2007
Melodium: Flacana Flacana
Audio Dregs
Melodium: Music For Invisible People
Autres Directions in Music
[Losing Today]
IT
DI ROBERTO MANDOLINI
Band Web Site
Label Web Site
“Flacana Flacana” è stato pubblicato contemporaneamente
ad un altro disco di Melodium, “Music For Invisible People”.
A ben vedere le due facce dell'arte del giovane musicista francese.
Se, infatti, il disco uscito per la francese Autres Directions In Music
è il 'solito' pop d'avanguardia condito con elettronica, flauti,
melodica, xilofono, djembe, tastiere e chitarra acustica, “Flacana
Flacana” presenta Laurent Girard nella sua veste più intima.
Il disco è stato registrato per lo più solo con una chitarra
e un pianoforte. Anche l'utilizzo dell'elettronica è ridotto
ai minimi termini, e il risultato è il disco più sussurrato
che Melodium abbia mai registrato. Una volta tanto le atmosfere naif
tanto care a Melodium lasciano il passo a momenti di vera melanconia,
come la struggente nebbia shoegaze generata dalle chitarre su “Flacana
03”. Per Melodium un ritorno alle origini e agli strumenti con
cui ha iniziato a suonare. Per chi scrive, uno dei suoi dischi più
emozionanti.
ROBERTO MANDOLINI
Melodium: Flacana Flacana
Reviewed By: Maarten Schiethart
Label: Audio Dregs
[Pennyb Black]
UK
Laurent Girard who masquerades as Melodium is ultra-productive these
days. He has another album 'Music for Invisible People', which includes
his vocals, on Autres Directions. It has been released almost simultaneously
with this wonderful instrumental album, 'Flacana Flacana', upon which
the Angers, France-based composer heads into deeper waters.
The follow-up to the intriguing 'Anaemia' from 2004, it is streamlined
and comprehensive. 'Anaemia' built up pumping beats of glitches and
then juxtaposed it with Girard's classically trained piano and keyboard
play. 'Flacana Flacana' makes 'Anaemia' in contrast sound a little trendy
and loungy.
The 'Flacana Flacana' expression in the album title remains a mystery.
The implication, however, is that of an intrusive set of gently hammering
little gems. From its opening track onwards, all of which are named
'Flacana' by the way, 'Flacana Flacana' works around a theme that's
equally undefined and pleasingly familiar.
'Flacana #4' is where Melodium does on the road, with guitars that sound
like racing saws. He then returns to tranquility on '#5' and '#6' and
follows that with fragile snare play as the keyboards become the solo
instruments.The looped snare sounds build the rhythm section as it were.
The album is built around these interchangeable functions of instruments.
His vocal album on Autres Directions in France must be seen in this
light. At several points I was inclined to believe that this Audio Dregs
release included instrumentals of the vocal tracks. I have yet, however,
to find out an example of where an instrumental version of a track on
'Flacana Flacana' can be found on a song 'Music for Invisible People'.
Both recent albums are recommended, yet if there has to be only one
go for 'Flacana Flacana'.
MELODIUM, "Anaemia" (Audiodregs Records)
from Hang
Up (France)
L'actualité de Laurent Girard est foisonnante. Cet artiste multiplie les sorties, sur une ribambelle de labels, et commence à attirer les regards de structures plus conséquentes. Il vient de sortir un disque sur Autres Directions in music (à télécharger) avec quelques remixs en prime, autant dire que tous les amteurs de sa musique ne sont pas sans restes. Cet album là est publié par le label de Portland, dont j'ai eu l'occasion de parler à maintes reprises et avec lesquels j'ai eu l'occasion de collaborer. Ce disque est dans la lignée de son oeuvre, une musique électronique mélancolique, évocatrice et rêveuse. Les titres se succédent sans jamais lasser, et nous poussent toujours un peu plus loin dans nos songes.
Melodium: Anaemia
[Losing
Today] It
Fourth album in four years for the young person Laurent Girard, been born to Nantes and grown to crepes and commodore 64. Like many boys of its generation, Melodium plays to mischiare the sounds of blots some digita them with those of the nylon ropes of one acoustic guitar. Exercise, in truth, less obvious on its last album of how much it was not on previous the three. In "Anaemia" they are the rhythms to make it from landladies. Melancholy has left the place to one sure spensieratezza that giova to the digeribilità, but ago also to mourn one sure depth of the acclimatizations. If not it is pianoforte the instrument predelight in order to emphasize sure shadings: it is felt clearly in the introductory Reality Is Decaying, and then in the longest end It composed Organique Volatil II, neighbor to the evocative descriptions of Yann Tiersen. ROBERTO MANDOLINI
Melodium: Anaemia
from Pop
News (France)
The mysteries of musical journalism want that one encense M83 and is
unaware of the new album of Melodium. If the two projects differ under
many aspects, they are nevertheless close in their attempts to use the
electronica to build covers of sound fog.
Melodium aka Laurent Girard, pianist of formation, are a rather good
architect in the field. Without revolutionizing the kind, its sparing
and rather worrying electronics is made choked noises, pulsated deaf,
of tablecloths of keyboard and underwater beeps. With the instar of
the productions of Morr Music, discs of Anne Laplantine or Lali Puna,
"Aenemia" is thus a diving in an at the same time robot-like
and obsolete universe, as the meeting of the sampler and sonar.
The album is listened a little as looks at the end of "2001, Odyssée of Space". It is a crossing, a diving in an extraterrestrial universe and out of time, a music which privileges the imaginary one rather than the melody one. This attitude reveals a certain form of artistic intransigence and force admiration.
Obviously the vaporous aspect of the music of Melodium does not support total enthusiasm. No tubes, not of melodies to be sung under the shower, not songs which heat the heart. Perhaps but "Aenemia" is deserved at this price there. And with the wire of listenings, one learns how to determine the old stories sown by Melodium, such "Iopak (a)", "Felt Melt" or "Composed Organic", which among are successful and rest on a true beautiful melody construction. These pieces do not have anything to envy "Kid A" of Radiohead.
You will have included/understood it, in a perfect world one would
speak to us as much about Melodium than of M83.
-Mr Morel
Melodium: Anaemia
from Dogmatik
Melodium
is a one man's project by "Laurent Girard" from France. He
has released some more work to date on other small labels but this is
his latest. Laurent is a classically skilled piano player and it shows
on this CD. He does not, unlike many electronical artists, focus only
on the soundscapeing and layering, but also on the structure of songs,
the compositional side. The CD is floating somewhere between piano virtuosity
and wicked electronic bleeping and bouncing over layers of melancholy
invoked by "Korg-ish" analog-alike synthesis. He does not
innovate or brake boundaries that much, but he focuses on being an excellent
piano player and building his own 'electronified' orchestra playing
a modern symphony. It is modernized 'baroque' music. Actually I can
clearly picture myself Laurent, sitting inside some palace and playing
his work as if he were a band of musicians - a chamber orchestra - with
white wigs wearing vests with golden stitching. It is overall
a good album, ful of ritch composition per track and overall as all
tracks work towards the grand finale in "Composé Organique
Volatil II". Some tracks on this album remind me vaguely (or even
more explicitely occasionally) of Autechre's "Amber" and early
work by "Aphex Twin" to name but a few. The only downside
to the album, according to me, is the fact that the tracks often evelve
by adding sounds and layers as they roll over your ears and this sometimes
gets a bit dense… But then again, as said, this is most likely
the tendency of a "classical" symphonic artist.
Reviewed by Joeri De Ren
Melodium: Anaemia
[Grooves
#16/textura] USA
Having released three albums on Italian and French labels between 2001
and 2003, Nantes-based Laurent Girard (aka Melodium) now makes his Audio
Dregs debut with twelve richly cinematic instrumentals on Anaemia. In
spite of his training as a classical pianist, Girard features piano
to a modest degree, opting primarily for electronics and synths to construct
his dense through-composed soundscapes. The album pairs seven short
vignettes with four more fully-developed pieces and an epic, thirteen-minute
closer. Bringing structural contrast to the album, the shorter pieces
often work well (the brief overture “Reality Is Decaying”)
but, in some cases, are too fleeting (like the otherwise charmingly
buoyant “Residual Song”). By length and construction, “Composé
Organique Volatil II” is the album's focal point, even if it arrives
at album's end. Unfurling through multiple episodes, it opens with a
muffled classical theme (calling to mind Philip Glass's Glassworks)
placed within an exotic field of twitter and croaks, as if Girard is
aurally conjuring a nocturnal pond; eventually a blurry piano, joined
in counterpoint by a faint synth, appears to voice the melancholy theme.
The somber mood prevails through subsequent episodes of industrial patterns
and ghostly melodies.
That Girard's moniker involves a contraction of “melodie”
and “medium” seems apropos given Anaemia's melodic emphasis,
and in fact Girard's compositions often recall Nino Rota's music, specifically
its more nostalgic side (the late Rota best known as the soundtrack
composer for many of Fellini's films). The accordion in “Platitudes
& Cloportation” lends the piece a European feel but its wayward
piano theme more precisely recalls Rota , while “Chan's Escape,”
one of the album's strongest tracks, also channels the Italian composer's
spirit. Opening with a hint of the seashore in its soft background noises,
the melody's wistfulness is quickly offset by punchy beats. The composition
doesn't overly stray from its opening but, like Bolero, grows gradually
denser as it instrumentally expands and intensifies.
Anaemia is a puzzling title choice, given that, by definition, the term
refers to a lack of power, vigour, or vitality—an atypical characterization
by an artist for a work, to say the least—although there's an
alternate physiological definition which describes a reduction in red
blood cells' hemoglobin, yet here, too, the result of such a deficiency
is weakness and pallor. In marked contrast to these characterizations,
there's no shortage of vigour or vitality to Anaemia, even if Girard
favours a more melancholy tone overall.
-Ron Schepper
Melodium: Anaemia
[Penny
Black] UK
I'm not so sure if Laurent Girard went all the way to suffer
for his art since the album hardly shows deficiencies in melody. Maybe
it's Girard's conservatory degree as a pianist that lead him to name
this set of compositions 'Anaemia'. Melodium is at the crossroads of
piano magic and glitsch harmony. But as he defies to be pigeon-holed,
and as I would expect his work is too alien to most of his former students,
the body of work is rather solid and groovy!
Rather than break new ground, Melodium is a today's pianist with his
digital orchestra. Squelching sounds coming from the keyboards substitute
for the horn section, the strings take on the melodies while Girard's
superb piano play directs the compositions. Traditional by heart, Melodium
is a conductor lost without his symphony orchestra. 'Anaemia' progresses
from subdued excitement in 'Iopak Bis' to the dubby elektro acousitics
of sound sketches like 'Pseudo Anomali'. The intermezzos reshuffle the
seemingly false starts to pave the way for outright magnificent compositions.
Classical by nature, Melodium succeeds in building layers and as distorted
the mechanics sound at times, there is no juxtaposition. The layers
read exactly the same as the composition does. 'Anaemia' instead reaches
a beautiful spleen like momentum in 'Composé Organique Volatil
II' which is the grand finale to a wonderful album.
-Maarten Schiethart
Melodium, 'Anaemia', Audio Dregs, 2004
[Loop] Germany
This is the debut album of French Laurent Girard on Portland's
Audio Dregs label. But previously he has released on Static Caravan,
and his first album 'QuietNoiseArea' on the Italian imprint Disaster
By Choice in 2001 and two records on the French Peter I'm Flying in
2003 and also in last year saw the publishing of the 'Parthenay EP'
on the Nantes based Autres Directions In Music.
'Anaemia' is a disc that has that baroque feeling of 'Parthenay EP', although introduces this time more rhythm, shaded by the way, but its melodic sense stays and its naive sense, almost childlike, smeared of tinkly and acute sound.
Also several ambient tracks can be appreciate with rich textures like
the ones appraised in the tracks 'Industrial reminiscence I' and 'Be
away'. Although 'Iopak Bis' has been a land explored before by Arovane
or Phonem, its broken rhythms and its keyboard lines draws an impressionist
and epic picture, where the bucolic landscape does not do more than
to enrapture the listener.
- Guillermo Escudero
November 2004
Melodium - Parthenay E.P.
(Autres Directions
in Music/001)
[De-Bug] Germany
We are called a new Netlabel from France cordially welcomely. As Stratschuss
there are five Melodium TRACKS, filled up with Remixen. With Melodium
one always finds things, which one likes and then also again TRACKS,
which come one directly to the neck raus. Here in the net is everything
prima. Very warm and close Poptracks, with which one asks oneself, why
it not yet "in reality" rausgekommen are - excuses my disgusting
idea of plattenladen as navel of the world. Thus, I love these TRACKS
here. The Remixe also. Mentenai & Mimao, Dudley and Depth Affect
concentrate on the Essenz of the TRACKS, get their own instruments raus
and rocken loosely. Sweet, approximately and marvelously.
- thaddi *****
Melodium - QuietNoise Area
(disasters by choice)
[The Wire]
UK 03/2001
Melodium is the pseudonym of solo French electronics artist
Laurent Girard, who released a pleasant enough single on Static Caravan
last year. Here he combines fuzzy nocturnal electronica recalling Aphex
Twin icest moments with restrained electric guitar and piano. When he
tells you the name is a contraction of “melodie” and “medium”,
it’s not through fake modesty, his average melodies are so tastefully
airbrushed, you could sell furniture to them. When the guitar edges
into the sidelines, it’s pure Zen tone, momentanly recalls Japanese
minimalist Taku Sugimoto. However, Girard has since ditched guitar and
piano for pure electronica Dope.
– David Keenan
Melodium - A Possible Way Of Spending Time
(Peter I`m Flying/002)
[De-Bug] Germany
After two very beautiful 7"on Active suspension and two
earlier on Static caravan, an album on the Italian label Disasters By
Choice the style of Melodium a little from the acoustic sound moved
away and hissing ELT in love in the small quirligen sounds and Vibratos
much more around, seeks however above all thereafter on these large
moments to meet, in which the TRACKS seem to suddenly grow, and if that
folds not completely, then it has enough humor, in order to break her
off simply as on" break ". Very versatile plate, with which
each TRACK seems to look for another direction, which most very abstract
sound uses, but nevertheless everything very easily works, as if Melodium
would see for waking up only times over a few flowering fields. Somehow
easily longing however lucky plate, which already answered for its part
to the question hidden behind the album title with evenly this music.
-bleed *****
MELODIUM- A Possible Way Of Spending Time
Peter I'm Flying! 2002
[the milk
factory] UK
11 Tracks. 48mins 48secs
A classically trained pianist, Laurent Girard discovered electronic
music only five years ago, when he made the acquisition of a synthesizer.
Two years later, he sent a first tape to London-based label Tugboat,
then a second a few weeks later. Label boss Glenn Johnson passed them
onto Static Caravan who released a first 7”. Followed a few more
singles for a variety of labels and a first album, QuietNoiseArea, published
by Disasters By Choice in 2001. These releases as Melodium have gained
Girard a lot of recognition around the world. However, his native country
still seems reticent, but all could be changing with this second album.
Based in Nantes, South Brittany, Girard has teamed up with new French
label Peter I’m Flying! to release A Possible Way Of Spending
Time. Chronologically, this album is actually his third, its predecessor
being released later on this year by New York label Audiodregs. The
music created by Girard belongs to a long line of melancholic electronica,
fed with beautiful sounds and acoustic elements. Reminiscent of Boards
Of Canada, Isan or Múm, A Possible Way Of Spending Time is a
fascinating collection of warm melodic instrumentals, partly built around
guitar and piano sounds wrapped in blankets of analogue waves. His crisp
languorous beats and soundscapes might not be entirely original, but
Girard demonstrates here a truly personal approach to compositions and
textures. From the delicate Miljo-Zon, Pause 5 or Modulo Pi to the more
upfront Anna-thema, Yesterday and Trois Idées Fixes, his minimal
structures seem to develop in multiple directions at once, concentrating
each time on the evocative elements of the track more than on the technical
input. The closing track, Composé Organique Volatil, is a perfect
demonstration of the fine balance achieved by Melodium. Here, Girard
works simultaneously on electronic and acoustic grounds, shifting between
them at regular interval by inserting new melodic lines, to finally
amalgamate them.
If the album lacks variety slightly, it is however very consistent and
interesting all the way through. The music created by Laurent Girard
is refined and subtle; his classical background proves to integrate
perfectly with his more contemporary form of expression. Melodium is
definitely a name to remember.
Melodium - 7"
(Active Suspension/AS11)
[De-Bug]
Germany
Melodium loves its guitar. It works itself somehow however long not
as importunately as in some volume, but hidden in a soft cloudy breath
from effects and Dubs, in rauschig angeflauschten Beats, in dahinplinkernden
memories of melodies constant doubles, and if one dekonstruiert it,
how on the short TRACKS of these 7"then also times little time
leaves, then it also still on the laptop in noticeable program he nervousness
in addition. Rather however elegisch and charmingly.
-bleed *****
