https://soundcloud.com/orchid-e-noire/promenades
The French solo musician Xavier Soquet makes brilliant synth-pop under the name Orchidée Noire, and today we check out his newest track “Promenades“, as well as the video for “Abscisses et Désordonnées“, posted earlier this Spring. The artist has self-released a handful of singles since 2011, which are mostly compiled as Une histoire parmi tant d’autres, and his music often fuses a taut, post-punk compositional sense, with a lyrical and poetic vision delivered in Soquet’s cool monotone! Sonically, “Promenades” draws it’s sound from the European synth-pop of the early 80’s, and it’s opening melodic line hypnotically flutters, magically inducing the listener to give chase, before a throbbing kick, and elastic, bouncing bass-line, force the body into a driving, coordinated motion. Placed tenuously in the mix, almost underneath “Promenades” over-arching acoustics, Soquet’s romantic vocals hang by an icy thread; but if they sound distant next to the music’s enveloping, kinetic warmth, it only serves to heighten their poetic spell!
“Abscisses et Désordonnées” was released in March of this year, accompanied by this mesmerizing video. Using Peter Tscherkassky‘s avant film Outer Space as it’s source material, the video duplicates the original’s affront upon the viewer, at times violently challenging our desire to view, and it’s frenetic, disorienting action is well matched by this track’s unraveling mystery, and lyrical call to come “un-centered”!
