Perles, coraux & requins
Text by Emmanuel Dosda.
Open Heart
After answering the call of the wild—and that of his “mountain-dwelling ancestors”—Julien Gasc slips on mask and snorkel for an underwater expedition, a romantic introspection. The storm rages, but deep beneath the ocean’s surface, he has rediscovered tranquility.
“A shield amid the chaos”, a haven of peace where he sings of love. His melodies, influenced by heroes
João Gilberto and Chico Buarque, follow harmonic paths mapped out in his mind. With this album placed under the signs of Aquarius and Venus, he feels his body floating and alive—but also that of others, as when he inhabits the perspective of a woman “trampled and humiliated by her husband” (in Plongeon de haut vol).
It is by venturing into the abyss that the member of the supergroup Aquaserge manages to connect with his inner self—and even his unease: “I found the blue pearl on the cover in a gutter, purely by chance during a wander. This plastic jewel symbolizes, for me, the blues one sometimes feels, especially during the genesis of this record. The pearl is the image of the mother, of Mother Earth.”
Metronomic Underground
A guest musician on Stereolab’s tours—where he also performs solo opening sets—Julien Gasc was recently “targeted” by Anton Newcombe, his “idol back in the days of Dig!”. Gasc performed Re Eff in its entirety as the opening act for the band of Lætitia Sadier and Tim Gane (who appears on this record), dressed all in white—from shoes to beret—alone on stage at Berlin’s Huxleys venue, accompanied only by his laptop. “At the end of the show, Anton came up to me, comparing me to Brel or Piaf.”
The frontman of The Brian Jonestown Massacre then offered to record his next opus in his studio. Three sessions, between June 2023 and July 2024, would be needed, even though everything was already laid down during the first Berlin sequence.
“He can intimidate some, but with me he is gentle. We laughed a lot—laughed and laughed again during the studio sessions. Like a reggae producer, in the vein of King Tubby, he turns the volume up to 8/10 to capture and then sculpt the sound. He assembles, fine-tunes, captures vibrations, and visualizes an image. We work in much the same way, starting from an image that we transform into music.”
The second session was marked by a cardiac incident. After the heart attack, Newcombe ended up in the emergency room, driven there by Julien and a certain Alan McGee the following day. From his open-heart surgery, Anton would retain lasting effects: “It amplified his emotions.” There are tears in Perles, coraux & requins. Blue notes flow like drops of water, salty splashes sting the lips, adolescent bursts of breathlessness, ripples across time, sunken loves, and hearts surfing waves of melancholy.
▰ Tracklisting
1- Rosen montag (3:09)
2- Chez Martine (3 :15)
3- Le goût de tes lèvres (4 :04)
4- C’est dans le corps (4 :16)
5- Plongeon de haut vol (3 :57)
6- 16 (4 :09)
7- Patrick (3 :57)
8- Je t’aime bel et bien (2 :47)
9- Perles, coraux & requins (5 :41)
10- Déguste (4:22)
