Benoit Pioulard - Lasted (2010)

The music Thomas Meluch makes as Benoît Pioulard has always sounded cinematic. Using his deep, hushed voice, acoustic guitar, and smattering of electronic textures, his mix of dusky, introverted soft-focus indie-pop and ambient textures bring to mind flickering, aged film footage. This trend continues on Lasted, Meluch's third full-length under the name. The songs here share sonic concerns, but have no specific or overriding theme connecting them. Lasted sounds like a well-curated collection of miniatures that Meluch had stored away for later use, dusting them off and presenting them together when they felt ready. But it also feels like it's best experienced whole.

Indeed, what makes Lasted feel more complete than Meluch's previous records is how he weaves his interstitial tone pieces within the fabric of the more straightforward, poppier material. On 2006's Précis and 2008's Temper, those interludes seemed to exist solely to provide sonic variety; here, it's hard to imagine some of these songs without their lead-ins or fade-outs, like the way the crackling vinyl stop of opener "Purse Discusses" introduces "Sault"'s metric guitar lines. And some of the connecting threads are particularly subtle, like the rattling field recording that segues the title track into the stately interlude "Weird Door", for example. The album invites you to listen closely.

Production details aside, Meluch's songwriting has never been stronger. He's always had a way with glowing melodies– 2007's underlooked single "Fir" certainly proved as much– and they're equally present here. The easy-moving gait of "A Coin on the Tongue" suits Meluch's clear, shy vocals perfectly, while he's buried under beds of tickled piano and subtle drone on "Fluoresce". You can't make out a lot of what he's saying throughout the record, but the words still seem personal, somehow; Lasted is one of those albums whose meaning will shift depending on what you bring to the listening experience.

For those drawn to dark, hermetic, electro-acoustic folk, this is comfort food, and its familiarity is exactly what makes this music so compelling. In an interview with The Village Voice a few years back, Panda Bear said that he'd written "Ponytail", the beautifully simple closing track from 2007's Person Pitch, multiple times over the years leading up to the album's release. He also said that he'd probably never stop writing that song over and over again, and he sounded happy about that prospect. I suspect that Thomas Meluch might feel something similar in his music, and the results haven't lost their charm yet.

Tracklist:

01 - Purse Discusses
02 - Sault
03 - RTO
04 - Gloss
05 - Tie
06 - Shouting Distance
07 - Fluoresce
08 - Lasted
09 - Weird Door
10 - Ailleurs
11 - Passenger
12 - Tack & Tower
13 - A Coin on the Tongue
14 - Nod