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Pulsar
Regular price $32.98 Save $-32.98With two successful albums and a sold-out world tour under their belt, Paris-based L'Impératrice have matriculated from a good-times instrumental act created by music critic Charles de Boisseguin to a six-piece powerhouse whose sashaying mixes of funk and French Touch, disco and deep house now include the fetching vocals of singer Flore Benguigui. Their new album Pulsar, is a focused but far-reaching record, the jubilant testament of a band with plenty to say and the skills to say it themselves. Across 10 tracks, L'Impératrice move freely and authoritatively among the sounds they love, bridging hip-hop, kosmische, and modern pop with their most unabashed embraces of French Touch and international house ever. Benguigui, meanwhile, boldly sings of self-empowerment by shirking beauty standards, ageism, and drab normalcy, with a little help from an exciting set of new friends. A longtime fan who had seen the band multiple times, Maggie Rogers flew to Paris to lead the svelte and graceful "Any Way," approaching the song with an unabashed vim. They had a similar encounter with Erick the Architect, who was so enthusiastic about the sample- based and panoramic "Sweet & Sublime" that Benguigui scrapped one of her own verses to make more room for him. And Italian singer Fabiana Martone (Nu Genea) crafted the melody for "Danza Marilu" the moment she heard it's disco thump. Throughout these 10 songs, L'Impératrice espouses the rare willingness to be real about life and it's woes while also sounding like a perfect picture of joy. Pulsar opens like a window being slid open onto an unimagined world. During the title-track finale, where a casual confession of suffering climbs into a mighty climax rooted in redemption, the band intertwines dubstep, turntablism, and symphonic strings to offer a bracing conclusion: however we are is OK.
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Tako Tsubo
Regular price $40.98 Save $-40.98Broken heart syndrome is no fictional disorder. The phenomenon has a name: Tako Tsubo (or "octopus trap" in Japanese). It's an upheaval of the senses, an emotional burnout... It weakens the heart's main pumping chamber brought on by intense emotional distress: an earthquake or a natural disaster, or something less (literally) earth shattering like the loss of a loved one or the angst felt when one is spurned by a lover. Modern science is yet to find a cure. Tako Tsubo is a breakup album, and Matahari's romantic streak - predicated on the idea of an idealised heroine - has made way for a landscape more anchored in reality. L'Impératrice has certainly kept his taste for dance, groove on a virtuoso bass, vintage synths and glittery melodies. But gave himself the freedom to explore other lands, to step aside. It's a journey that has broadened the horizons of all of those who sail in the Empress. As for the elegance of the production, L'Impératrice has again teamed up with Renaud Letang (Jarvis Cocker, Liane La Havas, Feist), with the mighty Neal Pogue (Outkast, Stevie Wonder, Tyler the Creator) adding his mastery to the mixing. Perhaps most surprising is the deep exploration of the avenues of the heart, and in particular, the left ventricle. Ambivalent love, euphoria, sorrow and madness: so many symptoms which, taken together, suggest a bad dose of Tako Tsubo. It's a syndrome that leaves the heart damaged, submerged, swollen. And more alive than ever.
Track List
