The new album from duo Carnet De Voyage, Melo Disko, is a record that should appeal to fans of Broadcast, as much as, say, those who listen to Erik Satie pieces, and old French soundtracks. The release, out now on Gare Du Nord, is boldly genre-bending, and entirely listenable. Playing this, one wonders just where Rosey Chan and Mimi Xu had been all along?
"Radio Shack" is incredibly catchy, the sort of instrumental that suggests debts owed to Gainsbourg and Can, while "Ghostly Waltz" is lovelier, a precise, Sakamoto-like offering. Elsewhere, "Permit to Drive" and "Broken Time Machine" are trippy-er, a sort of cool retro thing happening here, even as the percussive elements in each cut recall the best numbers from more recent acts like Mouse on Mars or Pram. The two members of Carnet De Melo seem as adept at crafting beautiful, yet austere, music, as much as they are at making iconoclastic post-rock. If lots and lots of Melo Disko sounds like some long-lost soundtrack to a long-lost European art-house film, one imagines the imagined film to be something pretty cool, cool enough to be paired with this music.
Melo Disko is out today via Gare Du Nord Records. More details on the label here.
More information on Carnet De Voyage via the duo's official website, or their official Facebook page.
[Photo: Mike Figgis]