La Main – La Mélodie Du Sombre (Album – Unknown Pleasures Records)
Genre/Influences: Electro-Wave, Minimal-Electro, EBM.
Format: Digital, CD.
Background/Info: Three years after the debut album “L’Heure De Salir”, the French solo-project driven by Joann Guyonnet is back on track unleashing ten new songs.
Content: The sound of La Main is easily recognizable; it’s a melting pot of 80s influences like Electro/Pop-Wave, early EBM and pure Electro-Minimalism. The vocals are once again sung in French. There’s an interesting progression about the tracklist of this work. The debut songs are rather ‘slow’, a bit ‘lazy’-like, but quite progressively the songs become darker, colder and even harder at “Vif”.
+ + + : I personally experienced this new album in the prolongation of the debut work although it sounds more personal. La Main reveals that the sound is much more than a wink to Taxi Girl; this album has something of its own. I especially like the icy passages and the cold, melodic leads. “Silence” is a cool Minimal track while “Vif” has something more EBM orientated. I like this harder side of the work! I also have to mention the great last song “Cet Hiver”, which sounds as an apotheosis to the album.
– – – : La Main is a pretty accessible Electro project and yet its minimalism is not easy to seize while the French lyrics might be a challenge to catch an international audience.
Conclusion: If you like Electro-Retro-Minimalism with French lyrics on top, you’re definitely going to like this work!
Best songs: “Vif”, “Silence”, “Cet Hiver”; “Dans Le Coin”.
Rate: (7½).
Artist: www.facebook.com/ecoutelamain
Label: www.unknown-pleasures-records.com / www.facebook.com/Unknown-Pleasures-Records-566180440115465
About La Main
La Main is the solo project of French musician Joann Guyonnet, based in Avignon, France. The project’s debut album, “L’Heure De Salir”, appeared in 2017. “La Mélodie Du Sombre” followed in 2020 on Unknown Pleasures Records, with the remix EP “Sortileges Dans Le Club” issued by the label in 2021.
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