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viewing 1 To 18 of 18 items
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CD
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MORR 198CD
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American singer-songwriter, poet, and photographer Thomas Meluch, known musically as Benoît Pioulard, returns with his most structured and vocal release to date. Titled Eidetic, a word denoting the ability to recall mental images with extraordinarily rich precision, the album presents unprecedented clarity and vitality for Benoît Pioulard. To access its thematic ground, Meluch looked inward with an affinity towards the people he loves during a period marked by his move from Seattle to Brooklyn in 2019. Eidetic is the culmination of Meluch's craft both as a producer and writer. An evocative sonic vocabulary meets deft lyrical introspection, articulated with the nuance, vulnerability, and confidence of a longtime artist hitting a stride. Meluch has continually refined, redefined, and adjusted the focus of his gentle pop project over the last 20 years. 2021 full-length Bloodless found Meluch deep in droning decay, expressive yet wordless. With Eidetic, he swings back to sharpened forms. Lush banks of treated guitar and synth brush against hushed percussion; there is mist in the distance, but everything up close is intricately constructed and radiant. Meluch's voice is notably forward in the mix -- a warm and calming tenor, a harmonic coo more than a whisper -- ever-observant and actively processing. To record much of the album, Meluch filled a cabin in rural Maine with his usual setup of simple percussion, a couple of Fender electrics, and a parlor guitar made by his friend who does bespoke luthier work. Eidetic opens in a swirl of familiar haze; "Margaret Murie" eases listeners in, as lush and verdant as the landscapes conserved by its famed namesake. With the setting established, Meluch, the narrator, enters the foreground with "Crux," a tender piece written about finding new motivations in a new city. Meluch's prose shines on the swiftly-moving "Nameless," inspired by the neurological effects that came with the antiquated practice of manufacturing mercury mirrors. Across the album, labyrinthine lyrical ponderings scatter with dazzling imagery, artfully blurring scenes from world history with Meluch's more personal, present-day. The propulsive and earnest "Thursday Night" catches his mind overly active and too stoned, riffing on black holes and songwriting itself. "Halve" references the splitting of the atom, what he considers "the beginning of man's downfall," and the unrealized initiative proposed by the US government that would have created "nuclear refuges" in its national parks. Meluch's loved ones weave throughout; "Tet" holds his father's experience in Vietnam and its lasting effects. "Lillian Isola" touches on his maternal grandmother's spinal curvature, and "Pastel Dust" navigates the wake of his cat, who died on New Year's Eve 2020.
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MORR 198LP
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LP version. Includes printed inner sleeve and download code. American singer-songwriter, poet, and photographer Thomas Meluch, known musically as Benoît Pioulard, returns with his most structured and vocal release to date. Titled Eidetic, a word denoting the ability to recall mental images with extraordinarily rich precision, the album presents unprecedented clarity and vitality for Benoît Pioulard. To access its thematic ground, Meluch looked inward with an affinity towards the people he loves during a period marked by his move from Seattle to Brooklyn in 2019. Eidetic is the culmination of Meluch's craft both as a producer and writer. An evocative sonic vocabulary meets deft lyrical introspection, articulated with the nuance, vulnerability, and confidence of a longtime artist hitting a stride. Meluch has continually refined, redefined, and adjusted the focus of his gentle pop project over the last 20 years. 2021 full-length Bloodless found Meluch deep in droning decay, expressive yet wordless. With Eidetic, he swings back to sharpened forms. Lush banks of treated guitar and synth brush against hushed percussion; there is mist in the distance, but everything up close is intricately constructed and radiant. Meluch's voice is notably forward in the mix -- a warm and calming tenor, a harmonic coo more than a whisper -- ever-observant and actively processing. To record much of the album, Meluch filled a cabin in rural Maine with his usual setup of simple percussion, a couple of Fender electrics, and a parlor guitar made by his friend who does bespoke luthier work. Eidetic opens in a swirl of familiar haze; "Margaret Murie" eases listeners in, as lush and verdant as the landscapes conserved by its famed namesake. With the setting established, Meluch, the narrator, enters the foreground with "Crux," a tender piece written about finding new motivations in a new city. Meluch's prose shines on the swiftly-moving "Nameless," inspired by the neurological effects that came with the antiquated practice of manufacturing mercury mirrors. Across the album, labyrinthine lyrical ponderings scatter with dazzling imagery, artfully blurring scenes from world history with Meluch's more personal, present-day. The propulsive and earnest "Thursday Night" catches his mind overly active and too stoned, riffing on black holes and songwriting itself. "Halve" references the splitting of the atom, what he considers "the beginning of man's downfall," and the unrealized initiative proposed by the US government that would have created "nuclear refuges" in its national parks. Meluch's loved ones weave throughout; "Tet" holds his father's experience in Vietnam and its lasting effects. "Lillian Isola" touches on his maternal grandmother's spinal curvature, and "Pastel Dust" navigates the wake of his cat, who died on New Year's Eve 2020.
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Book
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MORR 162BK
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Art book with 100 pictures, 84 pages. 24x24cm, hardcover in linen weave with metallic embossed printing. Kranky veteran Benoît Pioulard (Thomas Meluch) has created his first full-length for Morr Music (MORR 162CD/LP). The release is complemented by the book presented here. A linen book of Polaroid SX70 photographs from more than two years of environmental explorations. The music on Sylva and its 84-page visual companion bear the beauty and strange shapes of nature: desert rock formations and colorful leaves, restless waters and peculiar plants. Meluch's dreamy ambient drones and saturated lo-fi pop embody the impressionist sensation of his visual aesthetic -- with this collection sound and vision are merged into an affectionate study of the organic. No audio is included with this book.
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MORR 162CD
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Kranky veteran Benoît Pioulard (Thomas Meluch) has created his first full-length for Morr Music. The music on Sylva bears the beauty and strange shapes of nature: desert rock formations and colorful leaves, restless waters and peculiar plants. Meluch's dreamy ambient drones and saturated lo-fi pop embody the impressionist sensation of his visual aesthetic -- with this collection sound and vision are merged into an affectionate study of the organic. Sylva is the result of one of the most productive periods in Meluch's life. During a nine-month hiatus from his day job he embarked on daily recording sessions amid trips to the American southwest, Montana, Hawai'i, and his native Michigan. Back home in Seattle, he developed his recordings and wrote the album's two mesmerizing vocal tracks, which call to mind early Fleetwood Mac or peak pop-era Brian Eno. "Keep" is based on a tiny flower called Draba mentioned in the book A Sand County Almanac (1949), about which "no one ever wrote a poem"; considering all the little plants he had inadvertently crushed throughout a lifetime of hikes, he wrote it for them. The piano-driven "Meristem" features a striking violin contribution from Freya Creech (London, UK), and is dedicated to Meluch's brother, who died suddenly two years ago. Sylva's other collaboration is the soaring vocal arrangement created for "Raze II" by Pulitzer Prize-winning composer/singer Caroline Shaw (New York, USA), a former touring mate who resided at the Banff Centre (Alberta, CAN) during the same period in which Meluch completed his recordings there. The album's ten songs are divided into four movements: Solum (soil/solitude), Ignis (fire), Coeptum (seed), and Vireo (thrive), with each group embodying a slightly different environ. When paring down the photo collection Meluch abided three guidelines: no man-made objects, no redundant textures, and a color palette as diverse as his vintage camera allowed. Follows two albums by his band-project Orcas (with Rafael Anton Irisarri).
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MORR 162LP
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LP version. Includes download code. Kranky veteran Benoît Pioulard (Thomas Meluch) has created his first full-length for Morr Music. The music on Sylva bears the beauty and strange shapes of nature: desert rock formations and colorful leaves, restless waters and peculiar plants. Meluch's dreamy ambient drones and saturated lo-fi pop embody the impressionist sensation of his visual aesthetic -- with this collection sound and vision are merged into an affectionate study of the organic. Sylva is the result of one of the most productive periods in Meluch's life. During a nine-month hiatus from his day job he embarked on daily recording sessions amid trips to the American southwest, Montana, Hawai'i, and his native Michigan. Back home in Seattle, he developed his recordings and wrote the album's two mesmerizing vocal tracks, which call to mind early Fleetwood Mac or peak pop-era Brian Eno. "Keep" is based on a tiny flower called Draba mentioned in the book A Sand County Almanac (1949), about which "no one ever wrote a poem"; considering all the little plants he had inadvertently crushed throughout a lifetime of hikes, he wrote it for them. The piano-driven "Meristem" features a striking violin contribution from Freya Creech (London, UK), and is dedicated to Meluch's brother, who died suddenly two years ago. Sylva's other collaboration is the soaring vocal arrangement created for "Raze II" by Pulitzer Prize-winning composer/singer Caroline Shaw (New York, USA), a former touring mate who resided at the Banff Centre (Alberta, CAN) during the same period in which Meluch completed his recordings there. The album's ten songs are divided into four movements: Solum (soil/solitude), Ignis (fire), Coeptum (seed), and Vireo (thrive), with each group embodying a slightly different environ. When paring down the photo collection Meluch abided three guidelines: no man-made objects, no redundant textures, and a color palette as diverse as his vintage camera allowed. Follows two albums by his band-project Orcas (with Rafael Anton Irisarri).
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LP
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BNSD 022LP
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After the sold-out cassette release of Stanza / Stanza II on Beacon Sound in 2015 (a co-release with Baro) and 2016's The Benoit Pioulard Listening Matter on Kranky, Seattle's Thomas Meluch returns with a brand new Benoit Pioulard album of ambient bliss. Floating on a plume of pure shoegaze, Lignin Poise conjures nature, specifically the waters and forests of the Cascadia bioregion, as ecstatic reverie. It is a work of deliberate renewal in a time of global tumult. A golden oasis of deep memory open to all seekers; hallucinogenic, like stumbling into one of the verdant. highly-oxygenated upper canyons of the Columbia River Gorge on a late spring morning, soaking in the warm humidity and cool mist. In Tom's own words: "I recorded this album during the fall and winter of last year, and it's thematically meant to trace a path through decay, death, and regeneration over the course of the tracks. My flat/studio is surrounded by deciduous trees (a huge deal for me especially since I live in the heart of the city) so those patterns were right in my face every day while I was recording. Lignin forms the support systems of vascular plants, so the title is intended to convey the posture and temporariness of life in full bloom."
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CD
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KRANK 203CD
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"The Benoît Pioulard Listening Matter is the sixth Kranky album from Thomas Meluch under the nom de plume Benoît Pioulard. It arrives on the 10th anniversary of his first LP, Précis, and offers a rekindled focus on self-examination, as well as a return to vocal-based pop structures following the mostly instrumental Sonnet (2015). Recording for the Listening Matter began during a period of grief, turmoil and self-medication, and continued throughout two years of growth and healing. Reflections on vice ('Layette', 'Anchor as the Muse'), virtue ('Narcologue') and death ('A Mantle for Charon') feature equally in this concise treatise aimed at the flawed-but-resilient core in us all. By coincidence this album was completed on the very day Meluch's only brother died; accordingly, it's dedicated to him and anyone seeking paths away from their demons."
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LP
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KRANK 203LP
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LP version. "The Benoît Pioulard Listening Matter is the sixth Kranky album from Thomas Meluch under the nom de plume Benoît Pioulard. It arrives on the 10th anniversary of his first LP, Précis, and offers a rekindled focus on self-examination, as well as a return to vocal-based pop structures following the mostly instrumental Sonnet (2015). Recording for the Listening Matter began during a period of grief, turmoil and self-medication, and continued throughout two years of growth and healing. Reflections on vice ('Layette', 'Anchor as the Muse'), virtue ('Narcologue') and death ('A Mantle for Charon') feature equally in this concise treatise aimed at the flawed-but-resilient core in us all. By coincidence this album was completed on the very day Meluch's only brother died; accordingly, it's dedicated to him and anyone seeking paths away from their demons."
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12"
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MORR 141EP
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Seattle producer and songwriter Benoît Pioulard (aka Thomas Meluch) follows the 2015 release of Sonnet, his fifth album for Portland's Kranky label, with his return to Morr Music for four shimmeringly beautiful ambient tracks, a touching blend of weightless drones and yearningly sluggish melodies. Meluch crafted the pieces with his standard basic rig of guitars, bass, loop pedal, and a few effects. A couple of vocal elements are hidden deep in the mix, as well as old field recordings dating back to his childhood. Memories beautifully dissolve within the glowing reverb and lively static of the four softly intertwining tracks.
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CD
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KRANK 193CD
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"'The basis of the album was a series of field recordings of tones and unintentional harmonies that I made in the summer & fall of 2013 -- whistling industrial air conditioners, bird songs, locust drones, washing machines -- that I mimicked or interpreted on the guitar, making loops that developed into fuller compositions. Several of the pieces are recreations of harmony loops that I heard in a series of extraordinarily vivid dreams, and then woke up and recorded. A few pieces had lyrics and vocal parts that I ultimately removed; at a certain point the album became an exercise in restraint, so I strove to leave only what I felt absolutely essential. Unlike most of my previous recordings, there are no digital/software after-effects on the album; all sounds are from analog tape and/or my few guitar pedals' --Thomas Meluch (Benoit Pioulard). The sound of the fifth Benoit Pioulard full-length is lush and verdant, a temperate rainforest of ear ecstasy that reflects the environment surrounding the artist. A mostly instrumental work, it is an adept melding of song and sound, melody and texture, the intangible and the palpable, that in an abstract sense recalls the more fractured and loose end of the '70s krautrock movement."
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LP
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KRANK 193LP
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CD
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KRANK 178CD
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"Hymnal is the fourth kranky album by Thomas Meluch under his musical alias Benoit Pioulard, following Précis (2006), Temper (2008) and Lasted (2010). It was written and recorded throughout a year spent in southeastern England and on the European mainland, during which the ubiquity of religious iconography and grandiose cathedrals became an unexpected muse. Raised as a Catholic but never especially pious, Meluch drew on this aspect of social history as the basis for Hymnal's 12 chapters. He notes a particular preoccupation with the ways that faith offers a sense of solace and belonging in an existence that inherently provides none, framed in a context of tradition, ritual and the notion of the eternal. Themes aside, Hymnal contains some of Meluch's most expansive instrumental works ('Knell', 'Gospel') and fully realized pop compositions ('Hawkeye', 'Reliquary', 'Margin'), making for a rich and dynamic long-playing arc. Also featured are string arrangements by kranky label mate Felix and guitar work from ambient maestro Kyle Bobby Dunn."
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LP
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KRANK 178LP
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LP version. "Hymnal is the fourth kranky album by Thomas Meluch under his musical alias Benoit Pioulard, following Précis (2006), Temper (2008) and Lasted (2010). It was written and recorded throughout a year spent in southeastern England and on the European mainland, during which the ubiquity of religious iconography and grandiose cathedrals became an unexpected muse. Raised as a Catholic but never especially pious, Meluch drew on this aspect of social history as the basis for Hymnal's 12 chapters. He notes a particular preoccupation with the ways that faith offers a sense of solace and belonging in an existence that inherently provides none, framed in a context of tradition, ritual and the notion of the eternal. Themes aside, Hymnal contains some of Meluch's most expansive instrumental works ('Knell', 'Gospel') and fully realized pop compositions ('Hawkeye', 'Reliquary', 'Margin'), making for a rich and dynamic long-playing arc. Also featured are string arrangements by kranky label mate Felix and guitar work from ambient maestro Kyle Bobby Dunn."
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KRANK 145CD
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"Lasted is the third album by Thomas Meluch under the alias Benoit Pioulard. Thomas has toured throughout North America and Europe since his last record, the process of which has had a marked impact on the development of these songs as lyrics and structures have been scrapped, tweaked and reworked in the live setting. As with previous albums, it was recorded and mixed in domestic isolation, this time throughout the rainy season in his current home of Portland, Oregon. While the extent of the dreary climate's influence on the results is left to the listener's discretion, what is certain is that Thomas has a preternatural ability to weave disparate sound components into a cohesive sonic tapestry, mixing a varied palette of field recordings and percussive elements along with melancholy melodies to create songs that recall -- and are akin to -- vespers of long-buried memories."
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KRANK 145LP
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2LP
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KRANK 123LP
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2013 repress, originally released 2008. "The double LP vinyl version of this release also includes the Precis album, issued on vinyl for the first time. The second album by Thomas Meluch under his Benoit Pioulard nom de guerre. Assembling various analog sources on basic software at home, Pioulard has honed his craft into a form that suggests something far grander. With soft-edged vocals and a broad palette of instruments that lately includes harmonium and cello, he constructs diverse arrangements that skirt the borders of pop with beautiful, detailed atmospheres."
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KRANK 123CD
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"Temper is the second album by Thomas Meluch under his Benoit Pioulard nom de guerre. Composed throughout a year that involved graduation from university and a cross-continental relocation, its 16 tracks arose in specific periods of intense creative energy. Assembling various analog sources on basic software at home, Pioulard has honed his craft into a form that suggests something far grander. With soft-edged vocals and a broad palette of instruments that lately includes harmonium and cello, he constructs diverse arrangements that skirt the borders of pop with beautiful, detailed atmospheres. The scope and sonic narratives of songs like 'A Woolgathering Exodus' and 'Golden Grin' exhibit new degrees of musicality, while the weightlessness of 'Brown Bess' or 'Sweep Generator' reflects the unrestrained context in which the record was produced. It is no coincidence that the word 'temper' has more than 20 definitions related to basic existential aspects like emotion, behavior, and music; it offers many dimensions but also reveals how scrawny language can be in its attempt to name the abstract. On Temper, Pioulard endeavors to make sense of things in a tumultuous time, inspired by everything from medieval astrology to the poems of T.S. Eliot and the films of the Italian neo-realists. Fully aware of the mission's vanity, he is nevertheless consumed by its path."
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KRANK 098CD
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"Précis is the first album from Thomas Meluch under his musical pseudonym Benoît Pioulard. Following a series of limited, handmade cassette and CD-R releases for friends and family over the last several years, and the well-received Enge EP, Précis arose as a documentation of a coming to terms with impermanence, marked by analog residue and the imperfections of human influence. A multi-instrumentalist with an insatiable palette, Pioulard bases most of his songs on treated acoustic guitars and honeyed vocals, backed by carefully layered bells, bass, dulcimer, old tape samples, field recordings and myriad other sources. These sounds, though sculpted roughly into pop songs, have their own delicate patterns of ebb and flow, distortion and disappearance. From the sunny refrain of 'Triggering Back' to the descent of nighttime chills on 'Needle & Thread,' Précis sighs in time with the seasons. It's an album about him, her, and you; it's an exaltation of the ways these things end."
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viewing 1 To 18 of 18 items
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