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Jim Putnam & Mickaël Mottet: Jim Putnam & Mickaël Mottet

Radar Brothers' Jim Putnam and Angil's Mickaël Mottet teamed up for this eponymous, collaborative album, and the results are pretty impressive.
Jim Putnam and Mickaël Mottet
Jim Putnam and Mickaël Mottet
We Are Unique!

Radar Brothers’ Jim Putnam and Angil’s Mickaël Mottet teamed up for this eponymous, collaborative album, and the results are pretty impressive. This record’s 10 songs sound like a musical conversation between the two. Putnam sings Mottet’s compositions, and Mottet sings Putnam’s, and their pair of bittersweet, whispery vocals makes them sound almost like musical twins. Much of the album sways through dreamy layers of sound, like the ringing guitars and distant synths of “Let Be”, the space-rock echoes of “Ethnology Is a White Man Thing”, the isolated stillness of “Down in the Ranks”, and the subtle expanse of closer “What It Feels Like”. These songs are well crafted, often beautifully executed, and not without some dark humor and charm (check out “That Other Song” for evidence). These songs sound very much in the wheelhouse for both of these singers, but these push the limits of their gauzy aesthetics in interesting ways and, in talking to each other through music they give the listener a lot to eavesdrop on. This is a patient yet rewarding record, one not to be overlooked.

RATING 7 / 10