![]() ![]() Opener “Hello, How? And Hey” immediately establishes these subtly heightened characteristics of elementalism, dualism and structure, with Chenaux’s vocal tracing gorgeous soaring melodies across a single beating chord, occupying all the space until guitar and Wurlitzer (courtesy of the album’s only guest, long-time collaborator Ryan Driver) enter in a cascade of twinkle and wah at the two-minute mark, eventually leaving the vocal behind as the song’s second half gives way to a woozy guitar and keyboard improv over the chordal pulse. Citing a spectrum of influences - Sun Ra, Jeanne Lee, Gang Starr, Charlie Parker, Betty Carter, EPMD and Thelonious Monk - Say Laura expands on a foot-pedal technique Chenaux has previously used here and there, taking things to a more programmatic level: beats composed on a Boss drum machine are used as noise gate triggers, slowed down and inserted into his guitar signal path to create tempered pulses. His pure tenor croon glides through a crisp, reverberant ether while his fried guitar careens dizzily and giddily, every gesture and timbre captured in unflinching detail by engineer Cyril Harrison.Ĭhenaux has also made his most minimal, controlled, regulated and rhythmic record. Voice and guitar are inscribed with elemental clarity in a wondrously open, symbiotic sonic space. But above all, Say Laura breathes like no other Chenaux album. Say Laura might as well be a jazz record - certainly as much as his previously acclaimed albums Slowly Paradise and Skullsplitter tread that genre-adjacent territory - though it also features moments and melodies that come as close to pop flirtation as Chenaux is likely to get. The five wandering, wondering ballads on Say Laura bring Chenaux’s semi-improvised but keenly intentional songwriting to its fullest, clearest, warmest and coolest articulation uncompromising and generous, hyper-specific and loose, spartan and luxurious, elemental and ornate. ![]() Say Laura perfectly incarnates the counter-intuitive interplay of instrument and voice that Chenaux has been revealing and revelling in throughout the past decade: his gently unhinged juxtaposition of resplendently smooth, seductively assured singing and puckish, frazzled, thoroughly destabilized guitar could come from no other musician. ![]() The new record by Eric Chenaux is his most immaculate and pristine. Signal path bandcamp free#In less careful hands, the combination of free range guitar exploration and crooning vocals could come off as awkward or disjointed, but Chenaux 's patient guidance makes even the most disruptive moments of Say Laura feel sweet” – All Music ![]() “ There are surface parallels between Say Laura and Arthur Russell 's minimal avant pop, but there are also more subtle similarities to Talk Talk 's floating ambience, the most stripped-down Sun Ra sessions, and the boundless curiosity and willingness to chase impulses that This Heat 's Gareth Williams explored with the sideways songwriting of his obscure Flaming Tunes side project. It's got this slippery warmth to it." ATTN Crucial Listening "When he's soloing, it sounds like his instrument is made of wax and he's playing in a warm room, all the notes are bending and sliding and drooping. “Chenaux is instantly recognisable as a phenom, finding endless new patterns for melodies to converge and separate and take the long road home.” – YellowGreenRed Ses frères de chant seraient, à travers les âges, un Arthur Russell, un Robert Wyatt." - Télérama Rien d’urticant dans sa voix doucement fêlée, limite falsetto. "La musique d’Éric Chenaux est à la fois déroutante et très abordable. An album brimming with a sublime alien balladry." – Record Collector “As delicate and lovely as a rare orchid, the album follows its own inner logic, with the songwriter guiding us through a wide-open landscape that’s unusual but strangely familiar all the same.” – UNCUT The ultimate and safe mind-altering experience. “This constant shift between dream and reality, between the ground and a consciousness-expanding dimension, is what makes Eric Chenaux records so precious and unique. ![]()
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