Sebastien Tellier

L’Aventura (Record Makers)
17/20

A beautiful nude dives into a particular Parisian roof-terrace pool; a splashed droplet settles on the weathered lip of one particularly full-bearded Parisian. He calmly awakens on his sun lounger. An unfamiliar record is starting up in the corner and the back of an unfamiliar orange-suited man is disappearing along the winding cobbles below into the sunset. Sébastien Tellier’s latest gift, L’Aventura, is the dream of a Brazilian childhood he might have had and a celebration of the purity of naivety, similar in concept to how Gauguin might have painted Hawaii before he actually arrived there.

This album tells the story of the beginnings of the mystical, metamorphosing character of Tellier, like a cartoon character in the ‘Brazil’ of children’s books – He’s a conceptual kinda guy, alright?! Anyway, it’s nice to have a multi-dimensional backdrop as such a succinct album patters along. The external narrative that underlies his last two albums makes them unfalsifiable because any nuance in the music can be said to reflect an element of the protagonist or the story behind it. The listener is gently bopped along on a magical tour of one more cul-de-sac of a beautiful, strange brain that demands close attention.

The concepts behind his albums are what make them complete and concise. With the help of, electronic monoliths Phillipe Zdar and Jean Michel-Jarre, an orb of inspiration expands into a playful, engaging landscape that’s rich and smooth and free. The phased voice and the strings are thicker than ever and the bongos and beats are subtler and more precise. The Brazilian ‘Cuica’ drum honks happily around the lush synth stabs of Ambiance Rio before the mood calms. As the night falls, slow burn Commen Revoir Ourniset levitates slowly upward with sparkling pads before abrupt silence leads into convulsing mutatitions along phrases on a journey to find Ourniset the bear, a figure of French children’s stories. The album is French spoken entirely and, undiminished, the Godly baritone is solely an instrument; another aspect of the mystery. Moods and instruments come and go like characters as the album harmlessly tinkers along its cinematic fairytale concourse. By being quarantined in the mind of Tellier and apart from real Brazil, an album is born that leaps alive with vibrancy and a clarity that only exists in the world of immaculate phenomenal forms.

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Words: Henry Johns