5 out of 5

Label: Barclay

Produced by: François De Roubaix (?)

Things get weird. And French!

Okay, there’s only so many times I can describe François De Roubaix’s scores as, generically, “French,” but it’s also just the carrot for that very weird stick. And actually, the stick comes first.

…This is just a lovely, atmospheric set that shows off the real edges of De Roubaix’s electronics + analog abilities, stretched across pop, ambient, and truly out-there work that crosses from sci-fi strangeness, to intense emotional moments, to pastoral waltz, all within minutes of each other and seamlessly fit together.

Volume 3 of this series – selections from De Roubaix’s scores – goes to some short films and his rejected score for L’Antarctica. That should seem scattershot, and the genres touched on above suggest the same, but since we’re leaning more eagerly into fringe on this set, it prepares you for a lovely mélange of things, definitely much more bold than the works on volume 2, and less “clustered” than volume 1. The A-side admittedly caters more towards electronic atmospherics, but even within this you’ll hear De Roubaix zipping between synths and guitars, freely mixing in a way that never feels showy. On the B-side, the aforementioned Frenchness bops into view with some jazzier numbers; again, though, that will shift with Clockwork Orange menace creeping from beneath, or by slowly reverberating into a more atypical melody that then gets a pleasant flute, that then gets assaulted by keys…

Everything up to this point has sounded like De Roubaix. But volume three is Roubaix, boiled down to some of his best out-there works, all in one spot, and making modern day composers of throwback electro jazz jealous with how natural and modern François was able to make this all sound, decades ago.