At once an inhabitant of the shadows and light, Scalde cultivates his distance. A hyperactive dandy, an obsessive perfectionist on a quest to find the musical Grail that will allow him to turn into notes his concept of the world from his small den by the banks of the Lyonnais Saône. Scalde is a pioneer of songs and sounds, continuously in the vanguard of an agit-pop, out of which he has made his profession and craftsmanship. His work is Poperetta, an album of a dark kind of feverishness, a lo-fi opera fed on electro-organic subtleties, unveiling the dawn-like strangeness of its composer. An album in which the fluttering chorus buzzes drunk around the light of hypnotic loops, where the vocal patchwork, bringing together the sensitivity of Robert Wyatt with the sky-blue solitude of Tim Buckley, haunts the darker depths of Nico, the labyrinths of Terry Riley, or the unexplored mountain tops of Bjork.
Like a pocket symphony whose size was once dictated by the limited space from whence it came - a small composition that in the open spreads out its gigantic wings.
It is a hefty task for melody analysts and other mediums of sound to define the unclassifiable atmosphere in which Scalde floats a liberated stylist free of the handcuffs of categorisation. Atmospheric pop, psychedelic folk, lysergic trip hop, or chamber rock - on stage, between famous acts (Blonde Redhead, Matthieu Boogaerts, Tahiti 80, Troy Von Balthazar, Thomas Fersen, Aaron, Julie Doiron, An Pierlé, Kaolin…) and international festivals (Primavera Sound in Spain alongside The Pixies, Franz Ferdinand and PJ Harvey), Scalde multiplies his brainwaves and stage formulae. In the shadows, he sews together bits and pieces for a flamboyant hand-sewn costume to be slipped on that of a rock Proteus. At once light years from his studio work, and very close.
Scalde opens up this art of tailoring to subtle remixes (Agoria, Dominique A, Tahiti 80, Julien Ribot, Alb), collaborations with various artists (Agoria, Sylvie Marks, Fredo Viola), or to the efficacious productions and arrangements of his fellow artists - Selar, Benjamin Fincher, or Ex-Magnolia. For Scalde is both a figurehead and the Pygmalion of the Lyonnais pop scene. Founder of the record label disques puzzle, and architect of the springboard pop Dandelyon, which over the last three years has been unveiling the too-often hidden wealth of the lyonnais rock movement (Vale Poher, Fake Oddity, A Song, King Kong Vahiné, The Green Olive) Scalde still finds the time, among all these goings-on at the secret service of pop, to transform himself into DJ, giving a punch of vinyl to the already cult Parorama Pop soirées. A mysterious and extravagant moment, nostalgic and sophisticated, from where Scaldes music springs. And to better follow its own course, it flows back to us, over periods of time, to then trickle off further, like a traveling stranger passing through a strange country.
by Stéphane Duchene ( translated from french by Katie Lodge)
Like a pocket symphony whose size was once dictated by the limited space from whence it came - a small composition that in the open spreads out its gigantic wings.
It is a hefty task for melody analysts and other mediums of sound to define the unclassifiable atmosphere in which Scalde floats a liberated stylist free of the handcuffs of categorisation. Atmospheric pop, psychedelic folk, lysergic trip hop, or chamber rock - on stage, between famous acts (Blonde Redhead, Matthieu Boogaerts, Tahiti 80, Troy Von Balthazar, Thomas Fersen, Aaron, Julie Doiron, An Pierlé, Kaolin…) and international festivals (Primavera Sound in Spain alongside The Pixies, Franz Ferdinand and PJ Harvey), Scalde multiplies his brainwaves and stage formulae. In the shadows, he sews together bits and pieces for a flamboyant hand-sewn costume to be slipped on that of a rock Proteus. At once light years from his studio work, and very close.
Scalde opens up this art of tailoring to subtle remixes (Agoria, Dominique A, Tahiti 80, Julien Ribot, Alb), collaborations with various artists (Agoria, Sylvie Marks, Fredo Viola), or to the efficacious productions and arrangements of his fellow artists - Selar, Benjamin Fincher, or Ex-Magnolia. For Scalde is both a figurehead and the Pygmalion of the Lyonnais pop scene. Founder of the record label disques puzzle, and architect of the springboard pop Dandelyon, which over the last three years has been unveiling the too-often hidden wealth of the lyonnais rock movement (Vale Poher, Fake Oddity, A Song, King Kong Vahiné, The Green Olive) Scalde still finds the time, among all these goings-on at the secret service of pop, to transform himself into DJ, giving a punch of vinyl to the already cult Parorama Pop soirées. A mysterious and extravagant moment, nostalgic and sophisticated, from where Scaldes music springs. And to better follow its own course, it flows back to us, over periods of time, to then trickle off further, like a traveling stranger passing through a strange country.
by Stéphane Duchene ( translated from french by Katie Lodge)
