PRICE:
$20.50
IN STOCK
ARTIST
TITLE
The Lonely Tunes Of Pepper White
FORMAT
LP

LABEL
CATALOG #
HB 083LP HB 083LP
GENRE
RELEASE DATE
11/5/2021

LP version. Debut solo album for the frontman of French garage sensation Madcaps. The day before, his name was Thomas Dahyot. Young, dark-haired, he was singing in the Madcaps, one of the most feelgood garage bands in France. The next day, he woke up with bleached temples, carrying the blues of the devil. Here it is: that day he met Pepper White. At first, there were long months of abstinence when Thomas Dahyot thought he had hung up his guitar picks for good. But the lull was only temporary, notes came to fill the void that had settled in his life and gave birth to ten songs of The Lonely Tunes Of Pepper White. The old loves of the singer are found there -- the casualness of JJ Cale, the pop of the Velvet Underground of '69, the profane gospel of Nat King Cole, the acoustic heartbreaks of Ty Segall of Sleeper -- as well as his signatures of songwriter: the always astonishing breaks, the relief in the arrangements, the care given to the tempos. And there is the rest, the Pepper White ingredient. You can hear it in these tones that didn't require singing in head voice, the omnipresence of this piano whose keys he had fallen in love with, black and white, like his hair. "Lonely For Too Long", the first song composed on the instrument and its mellotron finale, gives some clues about the state of mind in which the album was composed. "Still In Love With You", is sung on two octaves, as if Thomas Dahyot was in duet with himself. These blue notes do not prevent the humor. The bewitching "Home Alone" invokes the diableries of Screamin' Jay Hawkins, while "Rom Com" confesses with derision the guilty pleasures linked to the televisual mawkishness. These are the elements, new and old, that make up Pepper White's music.