Peter Doherty - The Fantasy Life Of Poetry & Crime (2022) [Official Digital Download]

"Poetry is a narcotic that develops the mind. It induces the imagination and makes it explode. It's a kind of escape, a way to go over the barriers and barbed wire that we put ourselves," explains Peter Doherty. Settled in Normandy, with the cliffs of Etretat to contemplate and cross, at all hours, even if he prefers the greens and grays of the morning, the ex-Libertines draws new inspiration, like Monet, Courbet, Delacroix, Hugo, Offenbach and others before him. Did the adored and cursed poet find his way there? He who says he's lost. The punk flamboyance of Libertines and Babyshambles, the child of the century, had replaced it with the discreet charm of the brilliant Grace /Wasteland in 2009, Hamburg Demonstrations in 2016, then by a watered-down and less memorable rock alongside the Puta Madres and a first long-format, in 2019. Three years later, here he is, fully inspired by the melodies of the shadow man Frédéric Lo (Alain Chamfort, Alex Beaupain and many others), who first came to see him to cover Useless and out of use, from his album Crèvecœur (2004) in tandem with Daniel Darc, to whom he wants to dedicate a tribute disc.

Struck by his power, Doherty asked for other compositions. “He played me a melody and it hit me immediately. I thought this song needed lyrics and I should write them.”The more French plays, the more English writes. “The words kept coming to me. All these incredible ideas kept popping up. I think in two or three weeks, we had the album wrapped up.”The Fantasy Life Of Poetry & Crime, credited with the names of the two artists – according to Doherty's wish –, assembles twelve deep and elegant ballads on piano and guitar, crossed by a few rare violins. We find this folk-rock on the edge of his skin, sometimes whispered (The Ballad Of), sometimes turbulent (You Can't Keep It From Me Forever, Rock & Roll Alchemy), with the flickering and skinned beauty of his first solo album, with a search for purity throughout the songs. It is slow, melancholic, throbbing, tortuous, fragile. There are bright flashes, offered by discreet brass instruments and glockenspiel (The Monster), dark or more sober spaces simply drawn with acoustic guitar (The Glassbower, Abe Wassenstein) or piano notes (Far From The Madding Crowd). From the brilliant punk of yesterday that brought him to the zenith to the evanescent and earthly folk of today, Doherty's sinuous trajectory, made its way into the vast field of romanticism and punctuated by saving encounters, fascinates. His genius, too.

TRACKLIST

1. Peter Doherty - The Fantasy Life Of Poetry & Crime
2. Peter Doherty - The Epidemiologist
3. Peter Doherty - The Ballad Of
4. Peter Doherty - You Can't Keep It From Me Forever
5. Peter Doherty - Yes I Wear A Mask
6. Peter Doherty - Rock & Roll Alchemy
7. Peter Doherty - The Monster
8. Peter Doherty - Invictus
9. Peter Doherty - The Glassblower
10. Peter Doherty - Keeping Me On File
11. Peter Doherty - Abe Wassenstein
12. Peter Doherty - Far From The Madding Crowd



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