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LP
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PING 093LP
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Soft Centre is the new album by Iko Chérie, the solo project of French-born, London-based multi-instrumentalist Marie Merlet. She blends dub-inflected textures, pop-tinged vocals, reverb-drenched guitars, Casio drones, and warm experimental noises -- creating her own intimate, fragile sound. Self-produced and largely performed by Merlet, the album grew from an introspective process, with many sketches recorded in transit between tours. The result is a deeply personal work, balancing light and dark in a Lynchian dream-pop haze. Songs such as "We Smoke That Peace Pipe" and "Bilbao" shimmer between vulnerability and resilience, while the single "Ghosted Ghosters of the Holy G" captures the immediacy of a one-take dub bass. Some pieces retain the quality of improvised snapshots while others reveal her meticulous production process and songwriting craft. Merlet defines Soft Centre as alive in radical tenderness, unguarded, open, and vivid. Influenced by Clarice Lispector's prose, Diane di Prima's poetry and Rachel Carson's environmentalist writing, as well as Marie's fascination with a vintage Roland Space Echo, the album is an invitation to connection that she describes as "hopefully a meditation into healing." A versatile musician trained in classical piano, jazz, and electroacoustic composition, Merlet has long moved between different worlds of sound. She has worked with Laetitia Sadier in Monade, performs with Gina Birch (The Raincoats), Malphino, Yama Warashi, and several other groups. She recently appeared as guest singer on the latest Stereolab album. Her debut solo LP, Dreaming On (Elefant Records, 2015), revealed her singular melodic instincts; with Soft Centre she ventures further inward, shaping her own distinctive voice in experimental pop.
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7"
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PING 092EP
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Pingipung introduces Iko Chérie, the experimental pop project of French multi-instrumentalist Marie Merlet. The 7" single Ghosted Ghosters of the Holy G features a hypnotic blend of dub-infused songwriting and blissful noise. On the flipside, French electro-dub visionaries Froid Dub unravel the track into a shadowy, slow- motion version, with a solid sub-bass, flickering delays and half-heard whispers.
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