Franz Kirmann set to release album on Ransom Note sub-label Bytes

Music

French producer and film composer Franz Kirmann is set to release his debut album on Ransom Note Records sub-label Bytes.

Set for release on 4th October, the album entitled Madrapour marks Kirmann's fourth long player, coming three years after the release of Elysian Park, his dystopian album on on German imprint Denovali. During that period since his last release he has been involved in making soundtracks with his music partner Tom Hodge, including compositions for BBC drama McMafia and indie documentart The Man Behind the Microphone.

Kirmann takes a radically different approach on Madrapour to Elysian Park, moving away from digital sound collages to analog and modular synthesis. Constructed around live jams in his South london studio, the ambient, cinematic compositions are drenched in reverb and fuzzy synthesisers, for the most part beatless except for on the slow and visceral "Salem". The album unfolds slowly, its haunting quality gradually distilling restrained emotions over the course of an hour before the final track "Solitary" brings a supposedly endless journey to its conclusion.

The album takes its name from Robert Merle's French novel of the same name, which tells the story of a group of passengers who embark on a flight to an imaginary country called Madrapour, that they never reach. Instead the plane never lands and flies indefinitely, forcing the passengers to reflect on the meaning of life, the decisions they have made and the passing of time.

Bytes is the London-based heterogeneous sub-label of Ransom Note Records, who have previously released albums from Ride frontman Andy Bell's Glok project and Bristolian electronica producer Minotaur Shock.

The album was preceeded by a digital-onle single on 6th September, which features album track "Salem and Jade", an exclusive track not featured on Madrapour. The cassette release will be limited to 50 copies with artwork designed by Graeme Swinton.