Track By Track: Moodoid

Music

Moodoid is the mind melting project of Pablo Padovani, a young musician who concocts fantastical worlds from a haze of psychedelia, cooing romantic pop, ambient smoke trails and gleaming Bollywood strings. For his debut album Padovani and his band have teamed up with Nichoas Vernhes of Animal Collective, roped in a member of uber-hippy pixie fanciers Gong, and called in some saxophone riffs from Padovanis dad, cult jazzer Jean-Marc Padovani. Unsurprisingly, it's not your typical pop record. We asked Padovani to take us through the tracks of Le monde Möö – and here's his typically off kilter response:

Les Garçons veulent de la magie (Boys want magic)

Welcome in Le Monde Möö*. The big portal made of rock rises in front of you. You will have to take the crystal road to begin the long journey. But be careful ! This road is my tongue. My tongue is cheeky. She slides, she strokes, she turns and devours.
So the adventure begins with “Boys Want Magic”.
I wrote this song at « L’Electric Miami », the incredible barn-studio of the band Aquaserge. We were touring with Melody’s Echo Chamber and we stopped over for the night. I managed to sleep on my own in the barn located at the end of a field with an old 12 cords guitar.
Stéphane Bellity (Ricky Hollywood) and Benjamin Glibert (Aquaserge) aka the Echo Chambers play on this song. We recorded the song the three of us during an afternoon and we had a lot of fun!
This track is an incitement to dream, to seduction and surprise. I feel like girls often protect themselves by pretending to don’t look at you or to don’t see that you watch them. We all should have some fun with games and phantasms.
* play on words with the word “Möö” which is pronounced “Mou” in French and which means litteraly flabby, soft.

La Lune (The Moon)

The night has come on Le Monde Möö, it is full moon. Then begins a long exploration. Step by step in the dark, hills of whipped cream appear in the darkness and the light of the moon guides our steps. Footprints appear in argillaceous path, feet sink. The walk is slow and contemplative. Should we lay down right there until sunrise? It’s up to you.
My amazing idol Didier Malherbe of the band Gong accepted my invitation and plays here an improvisation of doudouk, a little Armenian flute made of apricot tree wood. Where does this sound comes from ? It probably is the sound of the moon…

Machine Métal (Metal Machine)

Hey ! Time to wake up ! What is better than a breakfast in bed with an episode of Derrick or Mac Giver ?? We got to begin a new journey with enthusiasm today otherwise it is not fun. Explosions ! Phone conversations galore, somersaults and heroism. Metal machines destroy loukoums mountains ! Noisy drums of Lucie Antunes in ears !
« If a world is flabby, there must be hard things in opposition. If hard doesn’t exist, nothing is really flabby. If there are hard things, everything else is even more flabby. ». That is what my friend, director Jérôme Walter (« Je suis la montagne ») used to tell me. He’s probably right.
I wrote the record during a week in November 2013. I went to Assier in the Lot (French region) for a week. I grow up in this village. So I was in my childhood house with all my memories. I began to work with a lot of excitement and I decided to watch news to regulate days. I usually never do that. It was the first day and I discovered that Lou Reed died a few hours before. This song is about this great artist that I admire. The metal machine is kind of him.

Bleu est le feu (Blue is the Fire)

We let Le Monde Möö in fire. The fire is blue, the fire is hypnotic. This is disturbing; the guide has the mean voice of an evil character from a Walt Disney movie. Flames move, forms emerge. Then appears a torch woman with a burning breast. She moves with the wind. « Come, let’s dance together and leave together to make love in coconut ice cream, we must refresh. »

Les oiseaux (The Birds)

When we make love, we fly away and in the air, we fall in love. Then we begin to make plans and promises. The difficulty is to know how to fly together, side by side and kiss at the top of the mountain.
I wrote this song far from my lover, I was touring with Melody’s Echo Chamber in the US. First tour of my musician career. Landscapes were passing by, excitement preventing me to sleep. Inspiration and constant desire to write. Love letters in postal bags, guitars between Seattle and Minneapolis huddled at the back of a van. Double bass melodies of Clémence Lasme fade…

Yes & You

We traveled a lot, half way already. It is time to land and settle the camp. We get our most precious items out of our old bas and prepare to huddle each other to sleep. The bird woman beside you might not be French, let’s try to declare her love in her native language, the effort might touch her.
It is an old song like « Je suis la montagne » and « La chanson du ciel de diamants »*.Here again a Moodogirl, Lucie Droga, plays keyboards.
When I met Melody Prochet and Kevin Parker, I was singing this song with Myra Lee at the Motel, a pub in Paris, some night. Kevin liked the music and Melody helped me to connect with him to collaborate on the first EP (on which he finally did the mixing). But this song wasn’t part of the 4 tracks of the final version of the EP and Kevin was disappointed, so I called him to propose him to mix it if he wanted. He did it in an afternoon and immediately understood the moment of tenderness and simplicity I needed in this album. I think it is his favorite song.
*songs from Moodoïd first EP

Bongo Bongo Club

Ladies and gentleman, it is now time to shake your bum. Yes, in Le Monde Möö there are decadent clubs. Here, hysteria is mandatory and craziness is so good when it is fun !
I really like to make jokes and to have fun. In my relationships I like to sing and when I’m euphoric I invent stories and songs from distant cultures. Here, Jean-Marc Padovani, who plays the saxophone, and Jérôme Pichon, who plays the guitar, join the crazy dance.
Africa is very present around me because I’m lucky to leave in Montreuil that we call « the second capital of Mali ». It inspired me, this constant joy prevailing in the Bongo Bongo Club.

Les chemins de traverse (The Back Roads)

Because before each end of journeys, there is always a climax, we go out of the Bongo Bongo Club a bit tipsy and disoriented to enter the big labyrinth. The sound of the oud played by Gilles Andrieux reminds us to the East. Africa is already far behind when the walk begins, full of traps. The labyrinth’s genius will guide you and will make fun of you by proposing surrealist visions and window-dressing. The women choir of Melody Prochet, Riff Cohen and Maud Nadal echoes in the hallway. But where all this will lead us? Towards the discovery of the people of Schmöö! I’m sure they will organize a huge banquet to welcome you.

Heavy Metal Be Bop 2

I was right! The banquet is ready! Gelatinous courses fill the plates! For the occasion Schmöös invited a crazy jazz-rock band! The singer is ready to start, but let’s not waste time, let’s go lay in perfumed sheets cradled by the sound of the alto saxophone of Bruno Wilhelm!
This song is a tribute to the band Brecker Brothers, Steely Dan or Weather Report who are, to me, too often forgotten. I still listen to their music with a lot of pleasure and I find that it has something happy and very generous. In the 80’s, people knew how to party in clubs. I often dream that I live in Purple Rain, Prince movie. It seems they all have a lot of fun. You should listen to Heavy Metal Be Bop of the Brecker Brothers, it is groovy.

Les filles font que le temps est jouissif (Girls Make Time Enjoyable)

Like in a good old Charlie Chaplin movie, the end of the journey faces a sunset with the road stretching to the horizon… There is still a long way to go but this time we leave Le Monde Möö. We still are too far to see the destination of the path. So let’s leave each other with a traveling song. The incredible cello player, Vincent Segal, will lead us until the stagger of an endless road.
We re-recorded entirely this song in an afternoon during the mix at Brooklyn with Nicolas Vernhes who helped me a lot with the album production. We were in the studio and we didn’t know exactly where to go with this song. I sat in front of his beautiful grand piano from Rare Book Room and in a moment of spontaneity we recorded some arpeggios, got the keyboards out, recorded again all guitars and it has been a wonderful day in the great cold of New York in February, like in a Paul Auster novel.
Goodness, how amazing it is to make a first album…