Lunabee: Prenez Garde Aux Flots Bleus

I listened to this album and thought: “A movie, a movie, a short film. This is a short film.” I’ve never thought like this before, listening to an album. I’ve thought (fairly dispassionately, on different occasions) “This sounds like soundtrack music” — yes, I’ve thought that before — but not this — “This is a film” — so clearly that I could almost see the film itself. It is dark blue, it has trees with curled filigree branches, it has fantastic creatures, fairy monsters, someone is lost and enchanted — it might be something like Pan’s Labyrinth, or The City of Lost Children. Pascale Vervolet sounds as if she is singing a story. I don’t know what the story is — she sings in French. The group is Belgian. Her voice is sweet and high, feathery. There are undertones of menace in the music. Not heavy menace — it’s dark but fun. It’s Tim Burton goth electronica. It is a lot of things. It starts with accordions and tango — an electronica Ravel or the Gotan Project with a cobweb soprano. The accordions disappear after a while: there is glitch, there are sound effects — donkeys, cartoon boings, grunting as if someone is constipated. What inspired this album? What do the words mean? What is the film about? It is an album of mystery. A small, unexplained, perhaps inexplicable object that I’ve tripped over by accident. I am enticed.