redoute - espoir et seulement (2023)

Artist: redoute

Album: espoir et seulement

Label: Imploding Sounds

Year: 2023

A sense of abandonment permeates redoute's album "espoir et seulement," and it begins with the cover. I'm struck by the image's superficial serenity. A mug of tea on a table, next to it some cookies (one half-eaten), and behind it an open window, bordered by polka-dot curtains, and in the distance trees and a mountain. But on the mug is a quote, "revenge is a human right" G. Noé (Gaspar Noé, a line from his movie Irreversible). Inside the beverage is some floating debris--it almost looks like moss? And the cookies, abandoned by Santa Claus? Or perhaps nibbled on by a mouse after its owners left? What at first appeared to be serene now looks deserted, uninhabited, detritus, post-human. This ambiguity between natural and unnatural, between ease and unease, quiet and disquiet, underscores the entire album, three songs ambient in nature but with hint of narrativity. Is the revenge that nature has survived now that humanity has been eradicated? 

I like the ambience on "etheree," blending natural and unnatural worlds. It begins with a keyboard melody before veering into sounds resembling an approaching storm, and later into a more electronically-filtered environment before the keyboard makes a surprise return at the end, concluding the piece with unexpected (but welcome) tonality. The title refers to a 10-line poetic form in which the first line has one syllable, the second two, and so on (or, in reverse, 10, 9, 8, etc.). I'm not sure if the song is a direct interpretation of the formal elements of the etheree so much it is an invocation of its French meaning, "ethereal." 

"echos surnaturels," translated into English as "supernatural echoes," is a spectral wave, ambiguous as to whether its sounds are nature or electronic in origin. Lulling in its repetition, there's a sense of unease in its subtle but persistent crescendo. 

The album concludes with my favorite track, "jaune," translated as "yellow," it's the shortest (5:48), and unlike the other two songs this one is primarily synth, striking a balance between beautiful and creepy.

According to Google, "espoir et seulement" means "hope and only." Once again I'm struck by the contrast of words, the first of which offers potential relief, and the last which signals despair. 

https://implodingsounds.bandcamp.com/album/espoir-et-seulement