Etienne Jaumet - Night Music

This superb album came out in late 2009. Etienne Jaumet is also in synth duo Zombie Zombie, who are not ashamed to reveal their influences - releasing an EP of their interpretations John Carpenter music. Whilst the influence of John Carpenter can be clearly heard on Night Music, the influence of Carl Craig takes the sound away from the more retro synth-fest of ZZ, into a more techno influenced direction. Craig is credited: 'Mix directed and imagined by Carl Craig', so it's not clear exactly what he does, but the grooves are allowed to run here, opening up into spacious vistas. First track 'For Falling Asleep' is a 20-minute epic masterpiece, driven by an arpeggiating synth, and simple kick drum. The track is pulled into the stratosphere with restrained duelling saxophones lines with heavy delay, and some trippy vintage synth noises. Like most of my favourite synth based music, it looks both forward and backward in time, with a futuristic ambience perfectly suited to driving around ultra modern cities at 3am. Although this is clearly the best track, every track on here is brilliant. The fat analogue lines and simple, classic drum machine grooves are always perfectly embellished with great melodies, and lush, deep ambience. On 'Through The Strata', what sounds like a hurdy-gurdy adds harmonic richness - hurdy gurdy and saxophone are not instruments I would generally associate with this kind of music, but they are inspired choices. The saxes return on the beatless last track 'At The Crack Of Dawn' - a reprise of the first track, which rounds out this hypnotic, resonant LP. Utterly brilliant: this was probably my album of 2009. Also, it makes a good companion piece to the Sinoia Caves album.

Versatile records asked me to delete the link. I'm going to leave the post up anyway, because I wholeheartedly endorse this brilliant album. I bought mine on vinyl from Juno, but they don't seem to have it any more. You can get it here or here in the US.

Youtube clip of 'For Falling Asleep'.