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LP
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RSN 012LP
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Pinned is the much-anticipated follow-up to debut album My Friend. Released via Ransom Note Records, Pinned sees C.A.R. -- aka Chloé Raunet -- refine her palette of glimmering electronics and post punk angles. With Raunet taking on the mantle of producer, singer, and songwriter, the album is a journey inside her inner world. Part French pop chanteuse and part cold wave androgyny, Raunet's vocals spin out mysterious stories over hazy claustrophobic synth pop and epic, widescreen electronica vignettes. From the whispering creep of "VHS" to the android John Foxx-esque machine march of "Cholera," Pinned keeps its secrets close, offering both flashes of bittersweet joy -- as on album closer "This City's" exhortation that "I'm still drunk on life, so I won't sleep tonight" -- and numb, world-weary ballads. "Sitting on your broken bones, the years have slapped around," Raunet laments on standout lead single "Daughters," an elegy to the faded. After a career that has seen her formerly leading the feted electro outfit Battant, collaborating with trend setters including Maceo Plex, Ivan Smagghe, Krikor, and Red Axes, C.A.R. is now blossoming as an artiste in her own right. Her enigmatic, electronic pop is packed with intricate left turns and tiny details flickering away at the edge of hearing. Aided by a restrained mix from Steve Osborne (Happy Mondays, Simple Minds, and New Order), Pinned has found the rarest of sweet spots between underground innovation and pop immediacy.
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LP
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RN 023LP
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Canadian-born, London-based producer, songwriter and vocalist Chloé Raunet, aka C.A.R., releases her third album, Crossing Prior Street, on Ransom Note Records. Full of bruised-but-ultimately-hopeful electronic art pop, the album tells Chloé's story of escaping a broken childhood in Vancouver, and finding her way to the lonely streets of East London, at the tender age of 16. "The one time in my life I lived alone, it was on a street called Prior. I was halfway through my teens and the place had lasting impact. This was a tiny, creaky flat, high in the eaves of an old wooden townhouse. Damp and cold, run down, sparsely furnished. Bare bulbs dangled from the ceiling, eyeing up the midnight visitors who'd come knowing at my fire escape. I'd let them in and lie limp as they crawled all over me. Thin mattress on the floor, welcoming whatever company I could get." An endorsement of the personal journey, Crossing Prior Street is the sound of Raunet reconciling different sides of herself emotionally, artistically, and sonically. The sparse production of minimal elements gives the album a direct punch. Booming drum machines, dissonant cold wave, skewed post punk, and esoteric pop juxtapose but join in strange and interesting ways. Chloé cites this clash as a defining characteristic of the album, which was equally catalyzed by her love of raw machine music and the catharsis of song. Like the sun breaking through clouds, shining onto a grey rainy day, the album glistens. Although proudly pop, there's nothing idealistic, fake, or saccharine here, as Raunet captures realistic glimpses of beauty found in everyday life, mixed amidst the gloom.
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CD
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KTDJ 012CD
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C.A.R. is the solo project of Chloé Raunet, singer of former London coldwave band Battant. She now writes, composes and produces on her own. Her first EP Laika (remixed by Timothy J. Fairplay, Krikor and Discodeine) is cosmic pop at its best. She also collaborates: the vocals and lyrics on Gessafelstein's debut album Aleph were hers and she is currently working with Ivan Smagghe, Red Axes & Manfredas on some leftfield dance-ish tracks. Earlier this year, she supported Gesaffelstein on his European tour. She's played with Planningtorock, Trans, Rebolledo and has opened for Cat Power at the Paris Olympia. C.A.R.'s music has been picked up by Hermes and the Hyeres Fashion Festival, where she joined Jaakko Eino Kalveli & Chloe Howl; Vogue Magazine making a cover-mount CD of their music. As one-half of Latete Atoto, C.A.R. also has a fortnightly show on London's uber-cool, ICA-linked NTS Radio and plays records at the Ace Hotel. Her universe is a red-hot & cold paradox, a battered Dodge supercharger finding its way between clair-obscur allegories and the cold sensuality of melancholy. Electronic experiments are backed with ghostly punk bass lines, icy synths balanced on heartbeat drums. As with her almost short story-like lyrics, C.A.R.'s music sits on her own edge, between realism and dreams, pure pop and acquired taste.
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