Premiere: In Aeternam Vale – La Plage

 
Music

During the winter months the beach became eerie and lifeless, a far cry from the sun-soaked days that preceded it. Unlike the summer, the sweet smell of sun lotion and fresh popcorn didn’t fill the air and the scrambles to find a patch of sand to lay down your towel were nonexistent. It was as if the life had been sucked out of it; the whole landscape had changed, now instantly unrecognisable without the throngs of energetic holiday makers and sun dwellers.

An underrated veteran of French new wave, In Aeternam Vale have continued to experiment with analogical synths and old rhythm boxes since their hey days in the mid eighties. Originally a three-piece project led by Laurent Pront, he now continues these musical movements up to the present day, leaning on his original influences of punk rock, industrialism and Kraftwerk robotocism, as well as exploring ambient, techno-trance and house in recent years. Across his new release for French label Zone, which unearths some new wave tracks he made between 1986 and 1987, he matches dead pan vocals with playful melodies, pounding industrial drums with dystopian atmospheres, and corrugated basslines with stretched, mangled lyrics.