Short Reviews [Pili Coit - 2021 - "Love Everywhere"]

The one thing which can always be guaranteed with releases on Dur et Doux is that they will be challenging, come from left field, be unlike anything else around and yet are also incredibly compelling. At least to me, I can imagine not everyone feels that way. The duo responsible for this album are Guilhem Meier, drummer with PoiL, PinioL, uKanDanZ and LFant and Jessica Martin Maresco, from Le Grand Sbam, Saddam Webcam, and EZ3kiel. Jessica provides vocals, floor tom, oil can, synth drum with Guilhem on vocals and guitar. I knew I was going to have to listen to this when I saw the following in the press release, “It is as if Jeff Buckley offered us the tea ceremony during a Portishead incantation. It's like a tete-e-tete between Nina Hagen and Nick Drake at the top of a Ferris wheel. As if Kurt Cobain had arrived by bike from China.” Curious? You should be. This is not improvised music, but songs with lyrics and deliberate construction, yet they are wild and free, untamed by the needs of modern music lovers. It is raw, White Stripes being thrown into the avant garde, it is harsh and at times almost atonal, yet there is a passion and purpose which keeps the listener coming back for more. Jessica has a delicate vocal when the time is right, and it is totally at odds at what else is going on, while Guilheim often takes the lead with his vocals being far more controlled than what is taking place within the arrangement. I often find with releases by this label that although I get somewhat inside the music the first time I play it, it is on the repeated plays that this really makes sense and I start to get a glimpse inside the minds of the musicians and what they need to achieve. That is certainly true with this album, as there is a great deal of space within the music as there is no bass to take up that layer, with voices that take the strangeness and turn it into something compelling and quite beautiful. This is not an album for those who want their music to be vanilla, but if you are looking for something which will push your understanding of what makes great music, then dive in.