(Indie Rock, Baroque Pop, Alternative, Garage) Nosfell - Echo Zulu - 2017, MP3, 320 kbps

Amour Massif heralded a change which Echo Zulu not only confirms, but also ushers in a new period. In this work, Nosfell unveils his obsessions and expresses the desire to be “intimate but not immodest.” Guitars, which have always played a major part in his work to date, have all but disappeared, paving the way for bare orchestrations based exclusively on rhythms that vary from one track to the next. The only guitar Nosfell plays is a low-pitched baritone four-string guitar tuned like a cello. Arrangements by Frédéric Gastard are given a flavor thanks to a collection of 1970s synthesizers – as warm and unpredictable as they are fragile and outdated – carefully selected by Emiliano Turi, who as well as producing the album also took care of all the drums tracks.
Each song has its own rhythm, like a luminescent mantra caressing an omnipresent darkness in both the lyrics and the tense harmonies. Finally, the structure of the album is perfectly symmetrical: 5 tracks in French, 5 in English and 1 bilingual piece, Ricochets, which symbolises Nosfell’s obsessive duality. Is he talking to a double whose very existence he questions, or to his superego - Chacun de tes désirs me coûte, You always make me feel sorry – or is he caught up in a love story nobody knows the outcome of - Ce soir le sort en est jeté ? Does Nosfell’s love of balance and symmetry come from his ability to be multiple, mobile, prolific? Or is it simply that his writing has remained unchanged while his vocabulary has evolved radically from one album to the next? Nosfell embraces his capacity to transform himself, and never be taken for granted. His previous albums are a foundation on which he reinvents himself through a constant search for new harmonies, for new vocal techniques and for himself. “I write music as a way to become a better person” he says. Such is how he questions his place in his field: a man with a wide vocal range who sings in a variety of languages and models his body in order to free it from any sense of belonging and be granted the luxury to exist and to create according to his own rules and his own abilities