Album Review: Demain Est une Autre Nuit by Essaie Pas

Demain Est une Autre Nuit is the first widely available full-length from Essaie Pas, but the Montréal-based couple -- Marie Davidson and Pierre Guerineau -- have been active in the city's music scene for years. Davidson has released two excellent solo albums (Perte d'Identité and Un Autre Voyage) in addition to being a member of Land of Kush and a few other projects, and Guerineau has engineered recordings by Dirty Beaches, Femminielli, and others. Together, their work treads similar territory to Davidson's minimal wave solo efforts, consisting of hypnotic electro and disco rhythms along with vocals spoken as well as sung in French; this album's "Retox" is cut from the same cloth as Davidson solo tracks such as "Excès de Vitesse.

Full Review >>

If Demain est une autre nuit (“Tomorrow Is Another Night”), then the music of Montreal’s Essaie Pas is itself another night. That is, their David Lynchian synth-wave is another space that threatens to lower our inhibitions and goad the resurfacing of everything these inhibitions suppress. This includes our fantasies, dreams, fears, perversions, memories, ghosts, lusts and passions, all of which are rekindled by the hypnotic rhythms and dimmed electronics of the duo’s second album.

Full Review >>

Perhaps appropriately for a genre of music rooted in the enigmatic and the obscure, the minimal synth revival has quietly become a movement without ever quite becoming a bandwagon. Montreal duo Essaie Pas are just one of a scattered network of contemporary groups reviving the sound and aesthetic of a lost generation of DIY-minded synthpop artists of the '70s and '80s, who either by accident or design ended up too rudimentary, too melancholic, or too plain odd to fulfill the "pop" part of the equation. You might, if you chose, chalk this up to another case of retromania, of modern musicians mining post-punk history in lieu of looking forward.

Full Review >>

If last month was teeming with a strong assortment of bouncy electro pop, then this one was chock-full of indie rock releases. Carl wasn't too impressed with most of these month's rock-oriented offerings, including Wolfmother's brazen return, while Juan was somewhat disappointed with those that ….

Full Review >>