Hey reader, thanks for reading! Sorry it’s been a long while.
Truth is, I’ve been coming to terms with how I build playlists, rethinking how this newsletter should work, yada yada. More on that later.
FIRST, this thrillingly unique, wildly progressive, Truly Eclectic™ band I discovered in early November. 🤤 Introducing…
Catastrophe
I love discovering great new music. But it’s rare for me to find such an ear-catching, extraordinary album that I share it separately with 12 different friends & family members before even finishing the album.
Such is my first date story with GONG!, the latest release from this six-piece French group of musical mages.
Listen to the new 43-minute record while you read this newsletter:
Spotify • Apple Music • YouTube • where else?
Most lyrics available at paroles.net/catastrophe
The album starts off strong with Encore, musing about starting life from scratch. This piece, one of my 4 favorites, starts with a few easy listening measures of steady, fast-paced beat and lyric, before breaking down into an operatic middle eight that crescendos into … BOUGE. (“move” 💃)
This unexpected transition leads into multilayered musical arrangements, both of which hint at a much more immersive and journeyed listening experience than you might have been expecting at first listen.
The second song Gromit takes a wildly unexpected turn: lo-fi hip-hop beat (complete with electronic hi-hats) with an almost-mumble-rap lyrical delivery that is somehow incredibly pleasant. The song it deviates into another deliciously operatic chorus.
Following Louise, an interlude about not being sure what we’re looking for, we continue into Social Network, a carefree upbeat satire informing you that “you have 17 notifications… check them! 232 notifications, come on, a little more effort, 3.294 notifications, 212 million… a little more effort…”
It’s pleasantly easy listening that descends into a final reminder that we can’t remain “living, fucking, and dying” in social networks forever.
Up next is Les méridiens, a low-tempo break suggesting that tomorrow doesn’t exist, seemingly sad but filled with lyrical imagery about living life without digital devices and wondering where we’re headed.
Then we have one of my 4 favorites on the album: Visages (faces). As the singer claims she has a million faces/profiles/thoughts/ideas in her head, but never enough, this upbeat track represents yet another rare progressive journey through various catchy melodies woven out of voices and instruments both traditional and electronic.
Le grand vide (the great emptiness) is another slow-paced philosophical musing about reality, missed connections, and life and its many meanings. Once again, this album’s balance of fast & slow, upbeat and downtempo, singing and speaking, proves just how gifted and artful the band has become since their start in 2015.
We then proceed into Les vivants (the living), another of my top 4 favorites both for its uniquely creative writing perspective (the dead) and its wildly progressive arrangement rarely seen executed this artfully in music these days.
A super catchy hook reminds us to laugh at life, to live life and worry less about its inevitable downturns. Each chorus unexpectedly ends with an almost heavy-metal-sounding breakdown reminiscent of Native Construct’s 2015 Quiet World that left so many jaws dropped in the progressive metal community.
This next interlude, Gisela, is from an unscripted interview with lead singer Blandine’s mother Janine. (Here’s a clip on the band’s Instagram.) She tells the story of a happy dog, having to put her down, burying her in a quiet place where not much grew, and a grove of record-breaking raspberry bushes emerging from her resting place. I still get goosebumps just writing about it. 😊
Nearing the end of the album, we’re treated to a two-part story titled Danse tes morts (dance your dead) that again artfully balances spoken word, opera, acoustic and electronic sounds into something indescribable.
Pt. 1 starts slow and slightly ominous, yet somehow still managing to feel jazzily carefree and doo wop-py throughout its development, repeating “clock never stops” and playing on words (“danse tes morts, danse dans ce décor”) It ends with a charismatic saxophone and cliffhanging note… … … which Pt. 2 picks up with promising pace!
As Pt. 2’s intro gives way to the main song, we’re graced with an almost Daft Punk-ish disco beat layered with what sound like live “whoop”s! and “yeah”s! Another spoken word verse over minimal jazzy background music explains how “at 3 am, I think of people I loved, living, who died… their ghosts whistle a melody without words, and I’m not scared anymore.” The song takes a side turn through robotic voices before culminating in a series of woo! ah! ah! ah!s.
Finally, we descend into Solastalgie (solastalgia), defined on Wikipedia as “a form of emotional or existential distress caused by environmental change.”
This slow, final track reminds us that the universe will go on without us, cities will become forests, buildings will disappear underground, only mysteries left of us. It ends gracefully with another clip from the interview with Blandine’s mother about time shortening as we age, and fleeting segments borrowed from previous tracks: Social Network, Gromit, and Danse tes morts.
Upbeat bonus track Maintenant ou jamais (now or never) was a terrific choice to end the album, featuring more spoken word and a lasting reminder that life is but a series of presents, moments born and dead, leaving time only to close our eyes and dance.
With a single album, this band has become one of my all-time favorites!
It’s clear from their genre-defying musical arrangements, complex lyrics, dance choreographies, illustrated music videos, and random other bits of creative fun that these are true artists, through and through. They push the limits of creativity, and will hopefully develop a global following and inspire generations of musicians to take more risks in their work.
I know I, for one, would love nothing more than that.
Discover more from Catastrophe online at lacatastrophe.fr (or lacatastrophe.fr/english), on their YouTube channel, and on their Instagram. And, if you are lucky enough to be in Europe, you may even be able to see them live on their 2020-2021 tour of France & Switzerland (pending potential reschedule re: COVID?).
That’s all, folks. Thanks for reading, and I hope you liked this record as much as I did! You’ll find it on a new Spotify playlist on which I’m featuring only cream-of-the-crop full albums in every genre. EVERY album is a truly unique, pleasantly experimental, ridiculously catchy storytelling masterpiece. You only know it when you hear it:
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-jtc