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CD
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CORPS 002CD
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Originally Re Eff (pronounced "Ri Èf") was a bunch of texts. One hundred and fifty pages that Julien Gasc wrote by trying his hand at the art of cut-up: a literary and political act of counter-fiction based on William Burroughs's method. It was also Julien Gasc's response to the isolation of 2020, while he was seeking refuge in the Southwest of France, with time and a piano. For a long while, it hadn't been about songs, but about expressing the indescribable by cutting randomly from books and his own notes, attempting to fleetingly strike a balance, find a beauty, a happy accident. Incidentally, it was almost by accident, while recycling a piece that he'd composed for steel guitar pedal, that Julien Gasc sketched the first draft of "Ce soir les bouteilles dansant" (Tonight the Bottles Are Dancing). This was combined with a version of "Rosario Bléfari", recorded on an inexpensive Casio synthesizer. These were Re Eff's baby steps. While everything was at a standstill, Julien Gasc wanted to send a group message to some friends, to his family, a message from a confinee to those who weren't answering, friend or foe, imaginary or otherwise. It was this collective recipient that he nicknamed "Re Eff". The name comes from "re" (re-) and "effacer" (erase), words found during a cut-up and transformed into ri èf for added euphony, like a facetious grief (grievance, reproach in French) without the "g". Like its title, a kind of serious joke, the album is one long interplay between humor and gravitas, sense and nonsense, shadow and light, aiming to fully describe feelings in terms of their ambiguous and contradictory elements. Through a return to regular piano practice, calm recovered at a holiday resort town, and literary experimentations, to which he added transcribed dreams, as in "La scie de la vision modern" (The Saw of Modern Vision), Julien Gasc composed ten demos on his computer. These demos were then rerecorded at Syd Kemp's Haha Sound studio in London, in December 2021. The mix was completed there again, in February 2022, by Syd and Julian. Play to play and write to write, those are the keywords of Re Eff, in which memories are freely combined ("À travers le regard de l'indienne" / "Through the Amazon's Eyes"), the theme of enclosure and passion ("Amour velours" / "Velvet Love"), melodrama ("Délivranc"), and romantic novella ("Tout ne peut pas nécessairement donner quelque chose" / "Not Everything Leads to Something"). Music resolutely oriented towards the piano, towards bold and filmic harmonic movements that make a successful form of lyrical poetry possible. Because all in all, by singing about current events -- his own and those of the world -- in an elegiac tone, like bards, Julien Gasc was gradually transformed from pop singer into poet.
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LP
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CORPS 002LP
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LP version. Originally Re Eff (pronounced "Ri Èf") was a bunch of texts. One hundred and fifty pages that Julien Gasc wrote by trying his hand at the art of cut-up: a literary and political act of counter-fiction based on William Burroughs's method. It was also Julien Gasc's response to the isolation of 2020, while he was seeking refuge in the Southwest of France, with time and a piano. For a long while, it hadn't been about songs, but about expressing the indescribable by cutting randomly from books and his own notes, attempting to fleetingly strike a balance, find a beauty, a happy accident. Incidentally, it was almost by accident, while recycling a piece that he'd composed for steel guitar pedal, that Julien Gasc sketched the first draft of "Ce soir les bouteilles dansant" (Tonight the Bottles Are Dancing). This was combined with a version of "Rosario Bléfari", recorded on an inexpensive Casio synthesizer. These were Re Eff's baby steps. While everything was at a standstill, Julien Gasc wanted to send a group message to some friends, to his family, a message from a confinee to those who weren't answering, friend or foe, imaginary or otherwise. It was this collective recipient that he nicknamed "Re Eff". The name comes from "re" (re-) and "effacer" (erase), words found during a cut-up and transformed into ri èf for added euphony, like a facetious grief (grievance, reproach in French) without the "g". Like its title, a kind of serious joke, the album is one long interplay between humor and gravitas, sense and nonsense, shadow and light, aiming to fully describe feelings in terms of their ambiguous and contradictory elements. Through a return to regular piano practice, calm recovered at a holiday resort town, and literary experimentations, to which he added transcribed dreams, as in "La scie de la vision modern" (The Saw of Modern Vision), Julien Gasc composed ten demos on his computer. These demos were then rerecorded at Syd Kemp's Haha Sound studio in London, in December 2021. The mix was completed there again, in February 2022, by Syd and Julian. Play to play and write to write, those are the keywords of Re Eff, in which memories are freely combined ("À travers le regard de l'indienne" / "Through the Amazon's Eyes"), the theme of enclosure and passion ("Amour velours" / "Velvet Love"), melodrama ("Délivranc"), and romantic novella ("Tout ne peut pas nécessairement donner quelque chose" / "Not Everything Leads to Something"). Music resolutely oriented towards the piano, towards bold and filmic harmonic movements that make a successful form of lyrical poetry possible. Because all in all, by singing about current events -- his own and those of the world -- in an elegiac tone, like bards, Julien Gasc was gradually transformed from pop singer into poet.
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CD
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BORNBAD 124CD
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Confession, fiction, and observation. This is how the trajectory drawn by Julien Gasc seems to evolve from one album to the next. While Cerf, Biche et Faon (BORNBAD 060LP, 2013) took the form of a diary and Kiss Me, You Fool! (BORNBAD 088CD/LP, 2016) that of a collection of stories, L'Appel de la Forêt concludes this trilogy in a tender and spontaneous dialogue, broaching the present with clairvoyance through melodies with bright glimmers. More adventurous than its predecessors, which respectively took root in the south of France and in London, this third chapter offers a kaleidoscopic vision, multiplying geographies and temporalities to ingrain itself in the moment all the better. Through a collection of dances of diverse origins, Julien places himself at the heart of the everyday -- embracing it, sublimating it, and calling for a transfiguration to escape its imminent disaster. His voice circulates through this fragmented horizon; it is raw and immediate, sometimes so stark that it disappears, making way for its interlocutor, like an invitation to occupy the space shaped by his ritornello. Emancipated from his dandy's costume, the rare moments where he puts it on again are to more effectively elude it. The address is deliberately frank and above all benevolent. Beyond an amorous chant d'amour, it is an ode to freedom and to the full awareness of our human condition that unfolds before us. An invitation, devoid of cynicism, to take off of our "social animal" mask and decolonize the world around us -- to stop wanting to possess at all costs and let those we love be free. This album is a roadside companion, with no dogma or precepts, and a simple motto: Stay joyful. CD version includes 12-page booklet.
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LP
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BORNBAD 124LP
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LP version. Printed inner sleeve; includes download code. Confession, fiction, and observation. This is how the trajectory drawn by Julien Gasc seems to evolve from one album to the next. While Cerf, Biche et Faon (BORNBAD 060LP, 2013) took the form of a diary and Kiss Me, You Fool! (BORNBAD 088CD/LP, 2016) that of a collection of stories, L'Appel de la Forêt concludes this trilogy in a tender and spontaneous dialogue, broaching the present with clairvoyance through melodies with bright glimmers. More adventurous than its predecessors, which respectively took root in the south of France and in London, this third chapter offers a kaleidoscopic vision, multiplying geographies and temporalities to ingrain itself in the moment all the better. Through a collection of dances of diverse origins, Julien places himself at the heart of the everyday -- embracing it, sublimating it, and calling for a transfiguration to escape its imminent disaster. His voice circulates through this fragmented horizon; it is raw and immediate, sometimes so stark that it disappears, making way for its interlocutor, like an invitation to occupy the space shaped by his ritornello. Emancipated from his dandy's costume, the rare moments where he puts it on again are to more effectively elude it. The address is deliberately frank and above all benevolent. Beyond an amorous chant d'amour, it is an ode to freedom and to the full awareness of our human condition that unfolds before us. An invitation, devoid of cynicism, to take off of our "social animal" mask and decolonize the world around us -- to stop wanting to possess at all costs and let those we love be free. This album is a roadside companion, with no dogma or precepts, and a simple motto:
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CD
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BORNBAD 088CD
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Following the inenarrable Cerf, Biche et Faon (BORNBAD 060LP), Julien Gasc (Aquaserge, Stereolab) delivers Kiss Me, You Fool!. Kiss Me, You Fool! leads the listener far away, into swarms of sound and sentimental, twisted tales, on a quest for illumination that traverses the rich palette of human passions. The title was taken from a graffiti discovered in the ladies toilets of a London pub. It is through this peephole that you can consider, like a voyeur, the paradoxical complexity of this album: At once witty, noble and degenerate, Julien struts his way through it with all the nonchalance of a night-owl dandy. A troubadour of modern times, he sings of unresolved love, self-mockery, the trivialities of daily life and the search for the absolute. The fruit of an exceptional artistic collaboration - featuring Laëtitia Sadier (Stereolab), John Linger (Neils Children), Cathy Lucas (The Oscillation, Vanishing Twin) and Joe Watson - this contrasting, emotional and heterogeneous album nonetheless forms a whole. Here, mirror plays, surrealistic songs and decadent poems unfold elegantly, seductive in their effortlessness. Countering the current norms, Kiss Me, You Fool! cultivates its powerful identity far from today's musical cliques and fads.
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LP
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BORNBAD 088LP
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LP version. Comes with printed under-sleeve and a download code. Following the inenarrable Cerf, Biche et Faon (BORNBAD 060LP), Julien Gasc (Aquaserge, Stereolab) delivers Kiss Me, You Fool!. Kiss Me, You Fool! leads the listener far away, into swarms of sound and sentimental, twisted tales, on a quest for illumination that traverses the rich palette of human passions. The title was taken from a graffiti discovered in the ladies toilets of a London pub. It is through this peephole that you can consider, like a voyeur, the paradoxical complexity of this album: At once witty, noble and degenerate, Julien struts his way through it with all the nonchalance of a night-owl dandy. A troubadour of modern times, he sings of unresolved love, self-mockery, the trivialities of daily life and the search for the absolute. The fruit of an exceptional artistic collaboration - featuring Laëtitia Sadier (Stereolab), John Linger (Neils Children), Cathy Lucas (The Oscillation, Vanishing Twin) and Joe Watson - this contrasting, emotional and heterogeneous album nonetheless forms a whole. Here, mirror plays, surrealistic songs and decadent poems unfold elegantly, seductive in their effortlessness. Countering the current norms, Kiss Me, You Fool! cultivates its powerful identity far from today's musical cliques and fads.
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LP
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BORNBAD 060LP
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With Cerf Biche et Faon (trans. "Stag, Deer and Fawn"), Julien Gasc guides and plants us in the forest of his emotions, playing with his ethereal voice and lyrical instrumentations against the gentle crackle of lo-fi cigarettes. With one song recorded per night in a studio before a tour in South America, the album holds its own vital necessity: write, heal, climax! This is Gasc's first solo album after many rich collaborations (including Aquaserge, Stereolab, April March, Katerine, and Bertrand Burgalat) and here he more intimately reveals the diamond he harbors within, having it vibrate on the shellac. These are resolutely pop songs for the most part, fueled by his adolescent energy -- his artistic and technical maturity does nothing to smother the fresh spontaneity he reinvents in the moments during recording. As the album advances, his Rasputin beard seduces us, pricks us, bristles and caresses us... as Arthur Cravan once said, "I am all animals, all things, all people (...)," might Julien Gasc be stag, deer and fawn all at once? As we listen, we feel all of the tenderness, violence, and innocence of his humanity, we navigate with him a sonic landscape filled with detachment, tiredness, anger, indolence... ... and, like a musical sandman, he delicately approaches to tuck us in on the last songs, plaid lullabies of angora softness.
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