4 out of 5

Label: Un Je-Ne-Sais-Quoi

Produced by: ?

As we’ve seen before, thanks to the almighty power of my reviews – impacting likeliness of record deals; immediately affecting album sales – and surely even just due to my incredibly persuasive writing, artists frequently take my feedback and put it into action. Antoine Bellanger has followed the trend, iterating on his found sounds recordings and simple boppy tunes to craft ‘Depuis les cimes,’ a wonderful next step from his Un Je-Ne-Sais-Quoi preceding Le Jardin Perdu / Talweg that packages very similar ideas into a much more cohesive – and less directly “art project” – release. Some irony there, perhaps, as Bellanger has teamed with visual artist Sammy Stein for the album, but Stein’s illustrated book works in great concert with the music and overall experience, giving a more tangible outlet for whatever Bellanger’s inspirations or intentions may be, and perhaps indirectly encouraging some better structure to the listen.

Bookended by the most minimalist examples of Bellanger’s nature samples, capturing ambient hiss and chatter, this frames the listen as something you stumble into accidentally, or like a memory of songs and thoughts. As such, the pairing of taped bird chitterings and Bellanger’s synthesizer tunes – which are often quite fun, sing-songy melodies! – feels just right, with track lengths not overserving either element and allowing this “memory” to float from song to quiet moments in nature and back quite naturally. It’s very beautiful, and delicate – though more confident than La Jardin Perdu as the songs truly are that this go-round; the pairing is that of open-ended recordings to discrete captures of (let’s say) Bellanger’s resultant mood, presented in song.

…This does come with a similar caveat as before, of course: that I don’t speak French. So it’s very possible the lyrics are obnoxious. But the way they’re intoned doesn’t outwardly give me that vibe, for what it’s worth, and there’s balance here again, with Antoine’s voice mixing earnestness with earthiness – he’s happy, but not trying to sell these songs as the cheeriest things on Earth. There’s an acceptance of melancholy.

From this emerges my only other criticism: by its nature, the album can’t have a climax of any sort. It feels purposefully… ephemeral. That makes it easy to keep on a loop, but also means the songs won’t linger past their runtime. Then again, you have a physical document to keep you busy, solidifying the connection all the more.