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LP
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ATN 044LP
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Miniatures De Auto Rhythm is the brilliant Domenique Dumont's second long player for Antinote. It's already been three years since Domenique Dumont made its entrance in the music world with his debut, Comme Ca (ATN 020LP, 2015). Despite a seemingly very quiet musical activity (the opening song to Antinote's compilation Five Years Of Loving Notes (ATN 5YEARS, 2017) was the only song released by the band in three years) a few things have changed in-between these two summers: Domenique Dumont is no more the mysterious lone French producer Antinote introduced last time but a Latvian duo, Arturs Liepins and Anete Stuce, which has been collaborating with "an enigmatic French artist whose existence cannot be confirmed nor denied" (sorry, but it sounds like there's still some mystery in the air, and, again, Antinote is just as clueless as you might be), the duo have been touring live and, most importantly, they kept on broadening their musical palette experimenting in a definitely pop field. Eight of these experiments are now tied together in Miniatures De Auto Rhythm. The record probably begins where Comme Ca ended: frantic but light drum programing backbones a solar and slightly melancholic melody on "Le Début De La Fin" ("the beginning of the end"). However, the scope gets enlarged as soon as one reaches the second tune, "Quasi Quasi", or "Quand", on the flip side, perhaps the most overtly pop-rock oriented song on the record with its Mediterranean guitar and emotional bridge. The road towards the apex of the record, "Le Soleil Dans Le Monde", is a narrow and windy one, punctuated by toy instrumentals like "Ono Mambo Haiku" or the Donkey Kong Country-friendly "Message Of The Diving Bird"; however it never departs from its original tongue-in-cheek attitude. It's quite pleasant to imagine these eight "miniatures" as field recordings from an enchanted world of pop music designed by some Pierre & Gilles disciples or being musical interpretations of half-mechanical, half-organic creations from a certain Otto Rhiesem (who might have inhabited the Locus Solus villa). There may be no definitive answers to this second set of riddles by Domenique Dumont.
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LP
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ATN 020LP
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The guys at Antinote don't know much about Domenique Dumont, but they don't seem to care; they just came across the artist's music and decided to release it. It's perfectly inspired dubby pop brightness. "Comme Ça" sets the tone for a pastel-colored album with its dreamy French (is it French?) lyrics, steel drums, and light reverbed claps. The following track, "L'Esprit de l'Escalier," takes the listener even deeper into Dumont's lost paradise of never-ending soft rock shows. "La Basse et les Shakers" is the club-friendliest track of the record, yet it doesn't lack the genuine sincerity that makes these tunes almost familiar. "La Bataille de Neige" and "Un Jour avec Yussef" might be the most melancholic tracks on the album, sounding like revived childhood memories, while the last tune, "Le Château de Corail," is both a summary and a conclusion to the LP, a goodbye song that encapsulates all of the emotional shades sprinkled on the five previous tracks. There's a pinch of nostalgia throughout Domenique Dumont's record, for a time when a curious idea could turn into a soon-to-be-forgotten (yet-to-be-discovered) pop song. Consider it an introduction to the warm summer nights.
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