After sun #92

After a summer of swimming and reading amid presidential tragicomedy and Olympic stasis, here I am again ready to resume the invisible sculptures and the sailing against the flow or on the banks of the mainstream which, truly, goes far.

The season is back with two adventures having stepped summer time.

Mid-July, with Madeleine Louarn, Catalyse and the graduated students from the École du TNB, we performed in Morlaix a first version of Daedalus, la vie de quelqu’un by Frédéric Vossier. I’ll have the pleasure to meet again this great and intense team to keep up for two weeks of work, at the end of which we’ll give two performances (free access) on the 24th at 2.30pm and on the 25th at 6.30pm, at the Théâtre National de Bretagne in Rennes.

I promised you complete soaring in June but, after some adjournment, our After Us album with Melaine Dalibert finally takes off, on the 6th on the Signature label by Radio France. To celebrate, we’ll play (free access) on the 25th at 12.30pm at the Champs Libres in Rennes. It will also be an opportunity to catch some rare physical items of the CD.
We do also keep up with marrying sound and image, with the artist Yann Lestrat and, off balance to the first short film Natures Mortes, we turn over the telescope to offer you This shape could speak…, a strange liminal promenade in his pictures, another way to explore this ‘after us‘.

But let’s speak about the Before. Flashback! A quarter-century ago, I used to sing in French. You might remember MOBiiL, this icy duo fixed up with my friend Gaël Desbois who bravely goes on digging this furrow under the pretty name of Chasseur.

MOBiiL was an odd thing, sort of a goth Boby Lapointe, or a diabologumized Bashung. A cold music and a cold anger that remained rather confidential (except in Spain). But even if, today, I find touching the bravado and the ingenuousness of some of my lyrics, I think that other titles have kept their strange savour, dark, funny and acid.

You may now find the whole discography on platforms. Which means 3 albums among which these titles set the tone: Prendre l’eau (2001), Contre le centre (2004), Fondre sur les hyènes (2007) as well as Mobiil Remiixed (2007) by 14 artists including Robin Guthrie, Don Nino, ARM, Bed or Oslo Telescopic and the final one Une bonne droite on the RALBUM (2008).

Here it is for September. I’m glad that you keep on following this newsletter, many other things will come and I hope you’ll have curiosity to try some.

I wish you a good new season with this prescription: a daily sound application of our after sun After Us to tan off softly.

Olivier Mellano