Since the Parisian label Pain Surprises carried Jabberwocky's Photobooth single in 2013, the batches of discoveries have multiplied. Other artists were added: Little Prince, Basile di Manski, Jacques, Isabelle, UTO, Future Pelo and (the two brothers, Benjamin and Adrien de) Grand Soleil. The latter performed on July 15 at the café-concert L'international, where about 80 free concerts take place each month.
Grand soleil, an electro-eclectic musical universe
Grand Soleil rose to prominence in 2015 with a critically acclaimed EP, This Is a Good Day. Their musical influence is said to be close to Rone's electro, Todd Terje's "space disco" or Jupiter's pop. Listening there is, both everything and nothing of that. The eclecticism of sound borrowings is part of it: samples of video games, movies, TV series of the 80s and 90s : aficionados of 8-16-bit consoles and other children of TV (and beyond) will appreciate.
Because among the 70 people who crowded around the tiny basement stage of the International, we could guess a convinced audience (to believe by the "Yes yes yes!" thrown in the air) and acquired. The air conditioners struggled to cool the space.
On the way to a musical journey that diverges from the first EP
If it was expected that Grand Soleil replays the tracks that made them known, it was even more. While the EP contained only 5 tracks, it is a set of nearly 2 hours in which the two brothers indulged. In the same tone at first, they took the winding road that we knew them, oscillating between moments of acceleration and deceleration. We could then find, among others, Misfits, which began (again) with dynamism and optimism their entry into the matter. But also Indian Poem, both giving pride of place to retro synthesizers and voices a little disillusioned, but never depressed.
Short pieces (very, sometimes), as a chopped warm up , before longer and unreleased pieces are linked. We can hope that they will be contained in part in the next album/EP. The geek samples were then erased behind evocative ambient noises ensuring multiple twists. The songs of children constituting a choir were followed by the stridulations of insects sheltered in an undergrowth. Then they gave way to a very house musical line, sounds of laser shots and a tirade extracted from… Terminator 2. An extension of the musical journey, which did not deny his influences.
Mix Grand Soleil – Indian Poem – Misfits
(photo source: PainSurprise)
